


Hollow

by Sligo



Category: Gundam & Related Fandoms, 機動戦士ガンダム 鉄血のオルフェンズ | Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
Genre: Aurora Tantas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sligo/pseuds/Sligo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Disaster Year 323. Poverty, War, and Death have shaped the society in which Aurora lives. As a young mechanic of Chryse Guard Security she must to learn to navigate the world around her when she and her friends become the targets of a large, non-government peacekeeping force. Adaptation of events in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This

            It was so cold that day. I was so hungry. Alone.

            Why was I alone?

            Oh right, they all died.

            Every last one of them.

            The sickness took them and only I lived.

            No one would take in an untrained kid like me. Jobs were harder to come by than food.

            I still don’t know why Nadi did it.

            I remember the alley I was in, cold and dirty with the stink of unwashed bodies. I was too hungry to move, my clothes hung like blankets off of my bones. I was waiting to die. Just like everyone else.

            Then a large man walked by. Usually when an adult comes through they take the boys. They are supposed to be stronger, or something like that.

            I remembered being confused when he stopped in front of me. I remembered his boots too: they were scuffed and marked with oil stains. They were the same as my father’s boots.

            I looked up at him in confusion; the CGS logo embroidered on his jacket was all I could remember seeing. What was that supposed to stand for? Oh yeah: Chryse Guard Security. I had recalled him from my father’s machine shop. He would come in sometimes, he was very nice and my father liked him. My father did not like many people; I guess I took after him a little bit.

            Nadi, that was the man’s name.

            “What are you doing here Aurora?” It had been a while since I heard my own name: I had nearly forgotten the sound of it. He crouched down in front of me. I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out.

            “It’s okay, you don’t need to speak. I saw your old man’s place but I thought you had moved. I’ve been walking around all day looking for it.”

            Of course he had not heard. He had been away at he base for the past three months; we were supposed to have had his next shipment available a week earlier. That did not matter anymore. Nothing mattered because I was going to die.

            Nadi paused, I thought he was going to leave me but he did not. Instead he brought me back to the base. I had been taught how to read and I knew some stuff about machines and first aid so I guess that was why I was not forced to have the “Whiskers” implanted into my spine. Maybe Nadi threatened to quit. The president is enough of a coward that that had probably worked.

 

            It has been nine years since the day Nadi saved me. I have made a few friends in that time; I have also lost a few more. It is quite the story if you want to hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

“Aurora!”

            A loud voice snapped my concentration. I had been working on one of our old mobile workers. Big machines that looked like those old tanks from the war books. They had two guns instead of one and were a lot faster and more maneuverable. This one didn’t want to start up and I was figuring out why. I was up to my arms in grease when Nadi came calling.

            “Have you seen Orga around? Maruba’s been calling for him but I can’t find him anywhere.”

            Nadi was a big, dark skinned man. He sported more wrinkles than the day he pulled me out of the alley, more gray hair too. Though he likes to say that I caused them. His steel shoes clanked through the hangar until he was beside the old machine.

            “Any luck with this old thing?” He patted the side of the mobile worker affectionately.

            I pulled my head out of the main engine, a bit of my red-brown hair had pulled free of the braid I usually kept it in. It was cold but I didn’t want to risk getting even more grease on my CGS jacket. Even the tank top I wore was so stained I couldn’t remember the original color.

            “Haven’t seen Orga all day. Mika could probably find him though. And I’m getting close with this one. I think I figured out where the bug is.”

            Mika, Mikazuki, was Orga’s best friend. They were both around my age but it was hard to tell exactly. They came into the company together and it hadn’t taken long to figure out that they treated each other like brothers, and that Mika followed Orga without question.

            Orga was, well, interesting to say the least. There was something tragic about him, like an ill-fated hero in an adventure story. All of the boys around the base looked up to him and treated him like their leader. It was almost cute.

            “Alright, there’ll be a training run later today. Make sure the Workers are set up.”

            I gave him the salute I knew he’d hate, “Yes sir!”

            He shook his head and sighed in exasperation at me, “Well I’ll see ya.”

            I was back in the machine before he could turn around. One of my many talents that kept my butt here and not out on the streets was my knack for making broken down machines obey. This one was no different. There had been rust build up around some of the moving parts, I had to remove that and fix a couple connections and, in theory, the machine would be back up and working.

            I jumped off of the mobile worker and looked around the hangar. The boys were busy with their various jobs. Nothing big or special that day, just the usual maintenance chores. I spotted one boy in particular, his name was Yamagi Gilmerton. He was very quiet, I’ve only ever heard him say “yes sir” or “yes mam”, and he hid most of his face behind blonde, bowl cut hair.

            “Yamagi!” I called, he looked up from the stack of tools he was reorganizing.

            “I need a hand with some of the mobile workers, wanna come?”

            He nodded and within minutes we were running through each of the machines. I didn’t let him use the Whisker implant with the machines, it was important to learn how to use them without it. Well, that and I hated what the company did to the kids when they came in. Whenever we got a new boy in I would make sure to avoid the surgery room. Not that it could even be called a room; they usually just set up a table somewhere relatively free of work clutter and went at it.

            I hadn’t realized the time until Yamagi’s stomach reminded me. His face turned a slight pink and I bit back a laugh.

            “Go get cleaned up and eat something, I’ll clear up here.” He nodded and hopped out of the cockpit.

            I made sure to put different paint colors in each one before I left. One of the pilots would definitely not appreciate it and I had a pretty good idea as to who it would be.

            After I had the mechs lined up and the tools cleared away I dashed away to the washroom. I was technically a part of the Third Army like Tamagi and Mika so I was assigned the same quarters as them. I was also one of the few girls on the base so I got to go to the showers at a different time from the others. I didn’t care so much when I was younger but the past few years I’ve been thankful for Nadi’s foresight.

            I glanced longingly at the showers but managed with the sinks. I scrubbed most of the dirt from fingernails by the time the tap water turned from tepid to freezing. Nadi always insisted that our hands be clean if we wanted to eat.

            I decided there was no helping my stained shirt so I pulled my jacket on to cover it and headed out to the food pavilion. The usual gunshots and explosion of practice drills echoed through the halls. It sounded like the mechs were out and running well.

            The sun was high by the time I got outside. There was a stiff breeze to, I was quite glad for my jacket.

            “Aurora!” Oh great, Captain Haeda’s lap dog Sasai. He had a dark look on his ugly face, his lips were drawn back from his overbite into something that could pass for a grimace. His sandy brown hair whipped around in the wind. I looked down at my uniform his was cleaner. Another way to show the First Army was superior.

            Just my luck that he finds me when I’m on my own.

            “What is it?” I tried to push the distaste out of my voice but he must have heard it anyway. At least I managed to keep my stare level, If I looked down or seemed insecure I knew he would target me even more than he already did. Showing weakness to a predator was as good as a death sentence.

            “Is that any way to talk to a senior officer, girl?”

            I kept my mouth shut; it would only get me into even more trouble. Unfortunately he took that as an insult too. He narrowed his eyes at me then, faster than I could dodge; he grabbed my left ear and twisted until I was bowed lower than him.

            “Maybe I should teach you how to show proper respect to your superiors.”

His fetid breath was all I could smell; I wanted to vomit at its stench and at how close I was to the nasty man. I fought to keep my face from twisting into a pained grimace.

            “Is there a problem here?” Relief rushed through me when Sasai released my ear. I resisted the urge to clutch at it even though it hurt.

            “There’s no problem, Orga.” I said quickly. He was behind me and hung his arm over my shoulder. Sasai backed down a bit, typical coward to act tough until he’s outnumbered.

            “Sasai was just telling me about a few of the First Army machines needing to be refueled. Right Sir?” He scowled at me then looked to Orga, he deflated a bit. How interesting.

            “Yeah, make sure to pass that on to Nadi, I don’t want you screwing something up.”

            Sasai stalked away toward one of the fields. I could see some of the kids from the Third Army on a landmine drill and prayed that he didn’t take out his anger on them. I could not stand it when others paid for my actions.

            When he was far enough away I swore and clutched at my ear. The pain was a little more dull but I couldn’t smother my stinging pride. Orga didn’t move from behind me but I’m pretty sure he watched Sasai until he was out of sight.

            I bumped my hip into Orga, “Thanks, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten out of that one.”

            He moved the hand that had been on my shoulder to my head, “Don’t worry about it,” He looked down at me, one corner of his mouth twitched into a small grin, “Instead I’d worry about Eugene when he finds you. How did you figure out which mobile worker he’d choose?”

            I let a smile break out on my face, so I got it right. “He likes the one with the least sticky steering. You’d think he’d have learned by now not to get in a prank war with me.”

            Orga sighed, a sound that came from deep in his chest. It sounded like something more than typical Third Army antics had caused it. I glanced up at him. His red scarf fluttered a bit beneath his jacket and his usually wild white hair was even more untamable in the wind. He had a far off look in his golden eyes; beneath them were darker circles than usual.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “Maruba gave the Third Army a high profile assignment.”

            “Isn’t that a good thing? Unless he’s setting you guys up to fail. What’s the assignment?” I ducked out from under his hand and started walking to the pavilion. I hadn’t eaten since sunrise, something my stomach was quite unhappy about. Orga’s much longer legs brought him beside me again.

            He grinned, I knew he liked that I could draw conclusions nearly as quickly as he could, “Escorting a person named Kudelia Aine Bernstein to Earth.”

            I stopped for a moment and narrowed my eyes at this. Bernstein. I’d heard that name before. She was one of the people involved in the Chryse liberation movement and, to a greater extent, the Mars Independence Movement. She was also the daughter of the representative of Chryse, our city-region. For president Maruba to allow the Third Army to do something like this was strange. A high profile client was usually reserved for the adults in the First Army.

            “What is he thinking?”

            “Well thanks for your confidence.”

We’d arrived at the pavilion by then. It wasn’t much, just a kitchen with benches and tables under a small roof. The noise of the Third Army kids made it more cheerful.

            “Orga, you know how highly I think of your pilots. You guys don’t wear down the machines like the First Army does. But Maruba doesn’t think of you guys that way. We both know this.”

            He grabbed two bowls of mash from the counter, I snagged spoons and glasses of water. We made our way to a quieter corner of the pavilion to talk. I sat beside him of course.

            When I reached for the second bowl, he looked down at me in mock confusion.

            “Wait where’s your food?” He joked.

            “Oh please,” I pushed past him and claimed the food for myself, “Maybe I’ll put pink paint in your practice mech next time.”

            “Spare me please.”

            We sat in comfortable silence for a while. The breeze had died down by now, the sounds of the practice run had long faded away. I was not looking forward to de-gumming the practice Workers.

            “When will you guys leave?” I asked quietly.

            “So eager to be rid of us?” He raised an eyebrow at me. I gave him my best cheeky grin.

            “Oh yes, leave me alone so I can be a tyrant.” I ranked below him in the Third but I was still pretty high up there. When he and the other pilots were called away the role of leader usually fell to me. At least it did outside of the maintenance bays; Nadi reigned supreme in there.

            “Maybe I should leave someone to make sure the power doesn’t go to your head.”

            “Leave me Biscuit! We never finished talking about the new adventure book. The one that takes place on earth. It has things called dwarves, orcs, giant birds, and even a wizard. ” Biscuit Griffon was a tubby, gentle boy from the town. He knew how to read too.

            “Nah, maybe I’ll leave Eugene.”

            I crossed my arms and pouted a bit, “But he’ll still be mad about the paint and I want to win the war.”

            “True, you may have the whole place covered in pink paint by the time we come home.” He laughed. It was a good sound to hear, Orga’s laugh. I liked that he tipped his head back a bit when he did it too.

            “Aurora.” I froze, Eugene had called my name in a voice was that kind of gentle quiet where you know something bad is about to happen. I pretended that I didn’t hear it and tried to finish my mash quickly. Orga laughed silently at me.

            “You’re gonna get it.” He whispered.

            I shot him a glare.

            “Try that again when your face isn’t stuffed.”

            Just in time Eugene arrived, Mika, and a tall boy named Shino were right behind him. I ignored the furious tall blond boy and waved at Mika and Shino. They all wore different variations of the CGS uniform: Mika’s own jacket was thicker and came down past his waist, he rolled up the sleeves so his hands were free; shino kept his jacket tied up around his waist; The latter was nice but a little too girl crazy for me. Growing up around a bunch of boys had made him a little strange. Mika returned my wave with a smile.

            “No Shino I will not go on a date with you.”

            “Aww how’d you know I was gonna ask.”

            I grinned, “Call it intuition.”

            “And you’re just going to ignore me?” I glanced at Eugene, he looked positively peeved, he even had a little bit of an eyebrow twitch. Mika and Shino snickered a bit. Apparently the pink had been a hit.

            “Whatever do you mean?” I put on my best innocent face but he was having none of it. Biscuit had arrived by that time, bless that guy. He Was a little on the chubby side with a kind face and scruffy brown hair that he kept mostly concealed beneath an army green cap; he wore a white scarf beneath his jacket.

            “Biscuit! I was just getting up, you can take my seat.”

            The boy smiled at me in confusion, “Okay, thanks! Hey when do you wanna talk about the book some more?”

            “Ah sometime before y’all leave okay? I have to run before that one,” I pointed at a fuming Eugene, “decides to try and eat me.”

            “Oh gotcha, I find you later.”

            I gathered up everything and hurried away. While I walked I could hear Orga tell them about the details of the transport mission. I glanced back one last time, I liked when they were all smiling. It was a rare sight, it had always been.

 

            Back in the mechanic bay I could hear the laughter from the boys. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and walked in with my best impression of Captain Haeda: grumpy like a cat out of the bath.

            I stopped just long enough to see what they were laughing at: one of the boys was impersonating Eugene. He must have been pretty angry to have stomped around like an Earth ape.

            “What’s all of this laughter about?” They froze in place. Oh I’d never seen a bunch of boys so scared.

            “Don’t you know it’s not right to impersonate your higher ranking peers?” they hung their heads in shame, a few of them brought their shoulders together.

            I let the Haeda act drop, “You have to at least invite me to join in.”

They smiled and started laughing at each other.

            “Come on, we’d better get the pink ammo hidden before Eugene gets back”

            “It’s a good think he’s such a bad shot when he’s against Akihiro and Mika, otherwise we’d have pink Mobile Workers instead of patchy green ones.” One of the boys admitted.

            “Nah, I’d make sure that one was put with the First Army mechs.” I assured them, “Only green for our pilots.”

            After that we got to work on the workers, the boys had managed not to get them beaten up too badly but there were a couple of low bolts to tighten. I let my mechanic crew take care of those. It was good to let them learn and get some confidence with the tools. That’s what Nadi always told me. I ran through the checklist on the Ele-tablet while they worked.

            After a few hours I dismissed them, they were cleaning up the tools when Nadi came to get me.

            We had to go over all of the equipment the pilots would bring on the escort mission to Earth. I was not particularly looking forward to it. The five boys who would be going were the closest friends I had, they were going to be gone for at least a couple of months.

            “Why the long face Ari?” Nadi’s deep voice knocked me out of my thoughts. I looked up over the gun-arm of a Mobile Worker, a worries look was on his face.

            “Just thinking about the escort mission, something doesn’t seem right about it. I’m probably worrying about nothing though.” I tried to smile but it wasn’t real, and he knew it. Fortunately Nadi knew me well enough that he didn’t press further. We worked in silence until the checklist was completed and everything was in prime working order.

            I ran down the list once more when Orga walked through the hangar to Nadi. He nodded at me, I nodded and then returned to the list. I managed to catch their conversation though. The lady, Miss Kurdelia Aine Bernstein, was going to arrive at midday tomorrow; the crew would leave the next day. I wouldn’t see any of them for five months after that. And that was if everything went right. Orga started talking about how the Third Army was often used as shields for the First and that this mission was no different. I heard nadi light a roll of tabacco.

            “Those things will kill you Nadi. Secondary check is done, everything is in place for loading.” I said while I walked over to them. It was an old argument between us. I knew he was never going to stop but it was a fun bicker match.

            “Not before you give my old heart more than it can handle. You see how she treats me Orga? Its abuse, I should call someone about it.”

            Orga just smiled at us both. I half listened while they talked about the Whiskers most of the Third Army sported. The old man-machine interface system, also known as the Alaya Vijnana system, that allowed them to pilot the Mobile Workers without much training or education. It was an awful thing to do. Orga had ditched his jacket and I could see his own Whisker while they talked. I remembered when he and Mika had arrived, when they had to undergo the implant surgery.

            Orga hadn’t cried, I remember thinking he was being brave but now I knew better. He had been scared of what would happen if he cried, if he showed weakness in front of Mika. Didn’t matter, he still got punched in the face for being “cheeky”.

            Nadi turned in for the night after the checks, Orga and I walked back to the bunk room in silence. It had become a nightly ritual for us ever since the men from the First began giving me trouble. That started maybe three years ago. We’d moved my bunk so that I was nearer to Mika and Biscuit, I didn’t really mind but sometimes Orga would throw dirty shorts at Biscuit and I when we talked about books for too long into the night.

            He also guarded me while I showered, not that I needed it but I’d learned to let the boys do what made them comfortable. I’d tried to stop them before but to no avail. Apparently having someone to protect made them feel like they had a job even when they were done for the night.

            When I had gotten as clean as I would ever get, I changed into my night clothes and dragged my tired self to bed. I heard Orga go through a similar ritual, I was asleep by the time he returned to his bunk across the isle from mine.


	2. Is

 

            I woke up a little before dawn to beat the boys to the bathroom. In the mirrors over the sinks I saw a girl who looked like me; The same bright green eyes, freckles that ran across both cheeks and over her nose, and the same brown hair that never wanted to stay in a braid. She looked like me; she also looked like my father and mother, long dead and never coming back.

            I had her eyes, Nadi had told me that once. I don’t remember my mother, she died when I was in diapers and my father raised me until he died himself. I had his mouth, Nadi like to say that every time I got snippy with him about something.

            There was a reason I didn’t like looking in the mirror.

That day was going to be eventful. The lady, Kurdelia Aine Bernstein, was to come and greet her escort team. Orga would let the pilots know if they had been selected at breakfast that morning. Nadi and I were going to load the transporters with all of the equipment we had checked the previous night. After another check of course. Nadi always forgot something important, the more checks we did the less likely that was to happen.

            I had already pulled my jacket on by the time the first wave of boys rolled out of their beds. They staggered, half awake, to the showers; not even noticing me on their way.

            On my way out the door I noticed Mika and Akihiro’s bunks were already empty. They’d probably already gone out on a run or whatever new exercise they cooked up. I looked at Orga, still asleep. It seemed like ten years had vanished from his face. It wasn’t often that he slept so soundly, I decided against waking him up.

 

            At breakfast it had been announced that Orga, Biscuit, Eugene, and Mikazuki would be the team to escort Miss Bernstein on the journey to Earth. They would be greeting her at mid-day and everyone was expected to be on their best behavior until they departed the next morning.

            Nadi and Yamagi prepped the equipment for transport while I ran diagnostics on the First Army mechs. They, of course, were not as careful with the Mobile Workers as the Third Army was. At least three of the mechs needed repairs to their ground movement systems in addition to the usual refueling.

            I called them dirty names in my head while I buried myself in the grease and wires of the mech systems. I had a couple of the boys work with me to learn how to fix problems like these; goodness knows they would happen often enough.

            Everything was quite calm until a little after lunch. I noticed it first with the younger Third boys, they were talking about how beautiful a lady was. Then it spread through to the ranks of the First Army and I was pretty certain as to whom they were talking about: Miss Bernstein. It was cute when the younger boys talked about her but down right creepy when the old men talked about someone who was at least as old as me, if not younger.

            “Alright guys, everything is fixed as it’s going to get. Go wash up and make yourselves presentable for the Lady. She might be touring the base in her down time.” They whispered excitedly amongst themselves, I could hear them until they were a good deal down the hall leading to the Third barracks.

            I ran into Nadi on my way back to the Third hangar.

            “Lady this and Lady that, sheesh you would think these kids had never seen a girl in their lives.” He started. I could only smile at the old man.

            “Did you hear? She even asked Mika to show her around the base. Poor thing.”

            “She probably thought he was a cute little kid.” I know of a couple people in the First who had made that mistake. Some of them still had emotional scars from his tactless statements.

            “Too bad she didn’t take Biscuit”

            “He would have been the best guide. Can you imagine if she’d taken Shino or Eugene?” I replied. Nadi laughed at the idea, the two were notorious for pining after girls. Biscuit would have some interesting stories after the mission was completed.

 

 

            Something was not right. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen. Mika and Akihiro were gone again, Eugene was probably sulking somewhere, Biscuit was gone, and Orga wasn’t in his bunk. Nadi had turned in early too.

            I wandered around the base. It was eerily quiet, the soft starlight made the familiar buildings seem strange and somewhat Alien. I walked closer to the perimeter, where the bright guard lights drowned out the stars.

            When I came to a deployment ramp I stopped and sat down on the ledge. My head rested on my knees as I took in the view. The barren landscape so scarred from practice battles and training drills was eerily beautiful. I must have been there, silently staring, for an hour before Orga showed up.

            He had his own jacket half buttoned whereas mine was completely sealed to the cold Mars night. His small lantern grew brighter as he approached. It was strangely cheerful compared to the stark base lights and the eerie stars.

            “I thought you would be asleep by now.” He said as he took a seat beside me.

            “I didn’t say you could sit there.” I grumbled at him.

            “Too bad, you need to practice your tyrant game if you want to be as good as me.” He grinned but I wasn’t up for a bicker match with him.

            “Something doesn’t feel right.” I said.

            He leaned back on his hands, “Yeah.”

            The lightness was gone from his voice. He was looking at the stars, in a few hours he would be with them. And I would be here without anyone to pester.

            “Promise me something?” I asked quietly.

            “Hm?”

            “Promise me you won’t die.”

He was silent for a while. Long enough that I began to get embarrassed about my statement. But then he looked at me and said: “I have no intention of dying yet. But I can’t promise that.”

            “Right, it was a stupid childish thing to ask.”

            “Alright, I’ll forgive it if you promise to knock Sasai’s lights out next time he gives you trouble.” Sasai was a creepy man in the First Army. He was captain Haeda’s second in command and a true bully at heart.

            “I happen to like living you know, if I attacked him I’d be as good as dead.”

            “Nah, Nadi would save you.”

            We laughed and then fell into silence.

            Biscuit joined us after a while. The boy still wore his signature hat over his unruly brown hair.

            “You guys can’t sleep either?”

            “Nope, bad feelings all around” I replied.

            “Something’s suspicious about the situation.” Orga said.

            “Yeah. Miss Bernstein is a bit naïve but she is an important figure. What she represents… Even Gjallarhorn could attack.”

            I thought about that for a moment while the boys continued talking. Gjallarhorn were the main peacekeepers after the great Calamity War roughly 300 years prior to the current time. They had historically carried out actions with Earth’s interests in mind. If they decided Miss Bernstein was enough of a threat to the status quo, they could destroy her. No matter how good my friends were, they were no match for what the wealth of the organization could buy.

            “Well, if it’s a trap we’ll just crush them,” Orga grinned with a fierceness I only saw when he ran drills, it scared me a bit, “trap and all.”

            “Well mister scary man you can stay and talk about your strategies, I’m gonna head back. Nadi wants the mechanic crew up before dawn to make sure you guys leave on time.” I hopped up and stretched a bit. I knew the two saw right through my brave face. They said nothing though.

            I had only been walking for a minute when I saw it.

            It rose over the buildings like a deathly specter. A white flare: Enemy spotted.

            The ice in my chest stopped me, the hairs on my arms and neck raised all at once. Then, hours of drills melted everything and kicked my muscles into gear. I pelted toward the mech Bay.

            I passed a young boy from the Third, he had seen the flare but was new, the swelling around his implant was still an angry red. He was frozen in fear, even in the dim light I could see his face was bone white.

            I grabbed him by his shoulder, “it’s okay to be scared but don’t let it control you. Get to the barracks and make sure everyone is awake. We can’t let whoever is attacking hurt our comrades.”

            He seemed to snap back to life, “Yes ma’am!” He saluted me and ran away. Brave kid.

           

            Mikazuki and Shino beat me to the hangar. Akihiro was hot on my heels when I raced into the hangar. We didn’t acknowledge each other as we set about to our tasks. They hooked up the adapters for the Whisker system and I opened the Hangar doors. My mechanic boys were running in half asleep when I had checked the fuel and ammunition for each mech. A headset was strung around my neck so I could hear what was going on outside.

            “Out of the way, they’re rolling out!” I barked at them.

            “Prep the other mechs, ammunition and fuel if you see something wrong pipe up!” The kids fell in line like good soldiers.

 

Eugene burst into the hangar, shirt off. I had his adapter in hand by the time he got to his mech.

            “I remembered to take the pink paint out.” I grinned. We were both a little jittery by then, we grinned grimly at each other before I hooked up the adapter.

            There was a boom followed by the whistle of a bomb.

            “Incoming!” Someone shouted.

            The world was on fire.

            The enemy launched a barrage of missiles. Most of them fell outside of the perimeter, in the drill fields. A few landed on buildings. Some were close enough to shake the hangar.

            “Any injured?” I called. Negative, no one injured in the blasts. Good, that would boost morale.

            “Who’s up top I don’t want any of those mechs crashing into each other!”

            “Ari, where’s Orga? I can’t leave without him.”

            “He’s on his way. Your mech is fueled and prepped”

            “Nadi, what’s the situation at First Hangar?”

            His deep voice crackled over the headset, “All set, everyone is fueled up.”

            Just fueled up? Why not moving out.

            “Are they going to move out? What are they waiting on?”

            “What’s wrong Ari?” Eugene called from the cockpit of his mech.

            “First Army hasn’t moved out yet.”

            “What?!” He snarled.

            My friends were already risking their lives while those First dogs were taking a nap.            Orga chose that time to make his grand entrance. He stalked forward like a jungle cat. His shirt was gone, jacket tied at his waist, only his scarf covered his neck. Part of me wondered if he ever went anywhere without it.

            A second barrage rocked the base but none of my boys called out for injuries. Good. They had found their rhythm and now little could shake them. All those mindless drills came in handy.

            “What’s the situation.” Orga called, Biscuit was ready with the adapter by the time he got to the mech. On the map of the base there were multiple red dots to show where bombs had landed, at a glance I could see nothing vital had been hit. Mika’s team was already out on the field; their mechs were green arrows moving slowly forward.

            “You’re late! Shino and Mikazuki have already deployed.” Eugene shouted at him. Orga glanced at me, I must have been a sight to see with my hair unbound, headset on, Ele-Pad in hand.

            “First Army has yet to deploy, no word on why. No vital buildings have been hit. No fires reported.” I reported.

            “Akihiro and others have set out from the second bay.” I brought the pad over so he could see where our friends had deployed out. There were names beside each arrow now.

            That was when First Army Captain Haeda strode into the hangar in all of his ostentatious glory. Todo, a high ranking officer who usually oversaw the Third Army drills, lagged behind him. Todo was light handed with discipline and a lesser evil we put up with from the First.

            “What are you all doing?” he called out in his bullish, gravely voice. I crossed my arms at him; he looked at me in a way that made me want to scrub myself clean in a boiling hot shower. Biscuit moved to stand in front of me.

            “You Third Army soldiers are all to attack the enemy head on.”

            “On who’s order’s” I spat at him, we were already deploying.

            “President Maruba.” He glared at me.

            “Who is attacking us?” Orga asked, a little too sharply for Haeda’s taste. He spit at the floor before Orga’s feet .

            “This is Shino, the Mobile Workers attacking us belong to Gjallarhorn!” Shino’s voice came through over my headset.

            “Did you all get that?” Biscuit and Orga nodded affirmative; Eugene had acquired his own headset from the cockpit by now.

            “Why are they attacking?!” Orga shouted at the First Army soldiers. By now the work in the Hangar had slowed while the boys watched the exchange between the two Army Captains.

            “Do you think I’m a psychic? How am I supposed to know!?” Haeda shouted back at him. I didn’t like anyone addressing the Third Army Captain with such little respect. Especially Haeda.

            Todo decided to get in on the conversation: “Why does it matter? Just deploy already!”

            What did they think we were doing here? Twiddling our thumbs?!

            Orga ignored him.

            “What will the main force be doing while we charge the front?” He asked the flustered Haeda calmly. I caught the look the two First Army officers exchanged. I glanced at Biscuit: he saw it too.

            “Basic pincer formation, we’ll get the rear and crush them like bugs.” Haeda replied. He would not meet the Third Captain’s eyes.

            I glanced back at Orga, he’d closed his right eye in annoyance. He wasn’t buying any of their crap.

            “Just hold them off until we crush them.” The two turned to leave. Todo called out something after Haeda’s order but I blocked it out. The battlefield was rough, we were losing too many people.

            Eugene muttered something about them needing to deploy now, he close up the cockpit without any further questions.

            I nodded at Biscuit, “Alright guys shows over! I want those fuel lines secured and the triage tent set up. We’re gonna have wounded to take care of and I don’t want any fires from those bombs going up!”

They called out “yes ma’ams” and hurried back to their tasks. They worked like a well oiled machine. They shouldn’t have had to grow up like this but at least they had jobs and food.

            Biscuit had taken my diversion to tell Orga about another Ahab reactor. The kind of power source used to run mobile suits. If there were any out on the battle field I wasn’t sure if even Mika and Akihiro could handle them in the Mobile Workers. I did, however, have an idea about what could.

            “Biscuit, Aurora. I need you both to do something.” We nodded the affirmative.

            “Nadi, how’s that old generator heating up? Do you need any help?”

            “No, Yamagi and I nearly have it back online. Biscuit just arrived with Miss Bernstein in tow.”

            Good, she was safe. Now they could focus on the mech in the generator room, an old relic from the Calamity War. If anyone could get it up and running, it was Nadi.

            Orga’s voice rang out over the headset: “Fall back Shino’s team! We have reinforcements ready for you. Mika, Akihiro, you too. Ari has the resupply team ready.”

            I did. The team was se up behind a set of stockades. My friends had done a good job, nothing was out of place. The wounded were trickling in as well. Some had been pulled from the Mobile Workers after they had been shot up.

            I glanced back at Orga, he looked like a war general on top of Eugene’s mobile worker. He would likely stay there throughout the battle. A very bad habit that would get him shot one day. No matter how many times I told him, he still insisted on doing it.

            One of the younger boys, Danji was his name, ran up to Orga’s mech.

“There’s a free mech! If you’re short handed put me in.”

            Orga considered it for a moment before saying, “Go to Aurora, when Shino resupplies you’ll be with him. No reckless mistakes.”

            The boy looked like he had been given the greatest gift in the world. He hurried over to me. I looked up at my friend, _is this really okay?_

            He bowed his head, _it has to be, at least for tonight._

We nodded at each other. He and Eugene moved out onto the battlefield. The sun was just beginning to rise at this point.

            Danji and his friend, a boy with blond and brown hair, Takaki was his name, approached me.

            “Both of you, Shino will be move to the second supply team wait for him there. Takaki help out with the resupply team. Send one of them to triage.”

            “Yes!” They saluted and ran over to the indicated teams. Mika had rolled into the first one, Akihiro was at number three, I saw Shino rolling through the gate by then.

            I walked calmly over to the triage to help where I could. First aid was a skill Nadi had taught me. I had made sure the Third Army knew it as well. One of the things first aid did not help with was the psychological toll of battle. There were a few kids who had tears running down their cheeks and snot coming out of their noses. One had his head in his hands and was on the verge of all out crying. I started over when I familiar boy, the one who had been frozen in the hallway, got to them first.

            “It’s okay to be afraid, but don’ let it hurt your comrades. I need help with the bandages, can you cut them for me?” Good man. The crying boy nodded and followed him to where another soldier was bleeding from a cut along his arm.

            “Aurora, we need you over here.” I looked over to see a and unnatural angle in the lower leg of one of the soldiers. A couple of the boys with him were turning green at the sight of it.

            “You two I need you to get me something for him to bite onto.” The boy who belonged to the leg had already passed out from pain but he would wake up soon enough. There was another boy, closer to my age, handling him. He didn’t even blink at the injury.

            “You ever reset a bone?” He nodded the affirmative.

            “Good get him spread out.”

            The boys returned with a wad of cloth. One of them had even thought to bring bandages and a splint.

            “I know this is grisly, you can go help somewhere else if it too much.”

            I lost one of them but the other stayed. A red haired boy, the same age as Takaki and Tamagi. His name Ride Mass and he helped the other boy lay out the injured soldier.

            “Aurora, where is the remote for the singal flares?” Biscuit’s voice chimed over the headset. I replied automatically while I analyzed the fracture site there was only one break. We didn’t have the luxury of the high grade medical equipment the city had so there was no way to be sure.

            I lost track of time as I focused on the soldier.

            “Ready? Setting in three, two…” I applied the pressure on one. The poor boy shrieked in pain but Ride and the other soldier held him down long enough for the splint to be set and stabilized.

            “Ride, this is very important, I need you to watch him, get him water, if he gets too pale or if his heartbeat gets all fluttery, I need you to get one of us.” I gestured to the other soldier and to myself.

            Ride nodded, looking pale himself, “You did a good job bud. You were quite brave.” He smiled and ran off for water.

            From then on everything was a blur of injured soldiers and resupplying mechs. It sounded Like Orga had his hands full where he was too. The enemy forces were pressing in all around. Everyone was taking fire.

            “Danji what are you doing?!” My eyes widened at the name.

            “Danji what did I tell you about being reckless!?” I shouted into the headset. A scream sounded over the frequency, he must have gotten stuck. Someone get to him, he shouldn’t even be out there!

            “Sorry about that” Mika’s voice chimed over the headset and I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding in.

            Orga relayed what was happening on the battlefield. They were getting hammered but they all held together. Wounded were being pulled from the mechs and brought back the the triage tent. One boy had his friend draped over his shoulder.

            “Aurora save him please!” He cried desperately to me but his friend was long gone. The wound was in a place not many could survive. I tried to explain but the boy went into hysterics over his friend. He just kept doing chest compressions, screaming his friend’s name.

            “Stop it!” I said firmly in the quiet voice Orga sometimes used.

            “He’s gone, is this any way to honor him?” He teared up again, I put my hand on his shoulder, “This is a battle; if we stop fighting, even more of our friends will die. We need to keep that from happening.”

            He nodded.

            “Go relieve someone on the resupply lines help where you can.” She boy wiped the tears from his face, gave be a salute, and ran over to where a Mobile Worker had just stopped for a resupply of ammo.

           “Orga!” Biscuit’s voice came out over the headset once more.

            “The First Army is fleeing with the President to the rear of the battle. Just as we thought they would. ”

            Those dogs were using us as human shields. Anger swept through me, hot as fire. It was strangely calming. I knew what was coming next.

            “Biscuit, go for it.”

            I saw sets of red flares erupt in the direction the First was fleeing in. When I refueled the trucks the other day I noted the flares stored on the tops of the trucks. Because we suspected the First was going to turn tail we set up the remote detonation for them.

            The morning had come but the flares were still bright enough to draw the attention of a good number of the enemy.

            “Looks like we have our decoy. Good work Biscuit, Aurora.”

            “Time for us to fight back!” Orga called out.

            Unfortunately, that was when the battle intensified.

           


	3. The

Chapter 3  
It was morning, the sun was bright and the sky was blue. Screams of the wounded were muffled by the blasts of heavy artillery. Biscuit had just remotely activated the signal flares on trucks being used by the First Army to flee through the rear of the battle field with Maruba, the president of CGS. They left the Third army to fend for themselves.  
“Alright guys, time to launch our attack!” Orga called over the headset. It would have been a rallying call, had there not been massive explosions immediately after. I felt a sinking in my stomach. Deep down I was hoping Biscuit had been wrong about the Ahab Reactor, the power source for Mobile Suits. If those things got onto the battle field, there was no telling how many would be left dead or wounded in their wake.  
“Nadi! How’s it coming?!” I called into the headset. My voice raised an octave from my fear.  
“Nearly there, we need a little more time!”  
“Where did the heavy artillery fire come from?” Orga said.  
I had finished with the latest wounded boy and raced to a better vantage point to see the battlefield. There was Orga, his white hair and red scarf made him easy to spot, maybe a little too easy when I thought on it. In the distance was an must more imposing figure, a Glaze mobile suit from Gjalllarhorn. It was dark green and deadly looking with a hidden cannon in what could be called the head, a gun for one arm and an axe gripped in the hand of the other.  
My heart sank even more when it was joined by two more Glazes with the same deadly features. I could hear uncertainty in the voices of the pilots. Eugene was wavering, saying they could not win against the Moble suits in their much less powerful Mobile Workers. Poor Danji had lost his fighting spirit and I instantly wished I had never allowed him to leave in the mech. Shino was out possible paths and even Akihiro was struggling for ideas. I waited for Orga, he would know what to say. He always did.  
“That’s right” He began, “There’s nowhere to run and there never was. We thought something like this might happen, right Aurora, Biscuit?”  
I knew what he was going to do.  
“Nadi! Mika is on his way to you!” Nadi was our head mechanic, my adoptive father, and my mentor. He was working on our hail Mary card. If anyone could get the old Mobile Suit that served as our generator working, it was him.  
“Nick of time, we just got it online.” Yes!  
I saw Mika’s mech race back through to the resupply area, “Mika, they’re waiting for you in the generator room.”  
“Got it.”  
“Orga, the cards are lining up, just hold on a little longer.”  
“You too, Ari”  
One of the Mobile Suits, the first one that had appeared was wreaking havoc across the battlefield. Our Mobile Workers were nothing but flies to him, he crushed each one that came close and there was nothing we could do about it. My friends were still working the triage unit and supply lines. There were boys running to carry wounded off of the battlefield. They worked efficiently and with purpose, something that had been drilled into them over long hours.  
“Just hold on a little longer! We need to buy time for Mika!” Orga’s voice rang out over the main com system of the base.  
The Mobile Suit continued its assault on the base. One of the shells struck a tower, glass rained down over us but there were no major injuries from it. I felt a sting as a few chards laded in my arm, I cursed and set about getting the larger ones out. A few others were doing the same.  
I heard Danji’s outrage at the assault. I heard him scream at the pilot of the Mobile Suit. I saw that same Mobile Suit turn to the direction of the bullets Danji fired. My world stopped for a moment when Danji’s Mobile Worker exploded. The Mobile Suit had merely kicked the mech away. The pilot had ended the boys life with the same casualness with which one would kick a ball.  
Shino screamed Danji’s name over the headset. Orga repeated his line to hold out for just a little longer.  
“Orga, it’s looking this way.” Eugene’s statement snapped my head back to the battlefield. The Mobile Suit had turned to face Orga and Eugene in their Mobile Worker. It’s head split into the beam cannon it had been concealing.  
“Guys, now would be a good time.” I called out calmly; if we lost Orga, we would lose our organization.  
Eugene dodged the cannon fire with skill I was sure Mika had drilled into him during practice fights. Orga’s voice sounded out over the now quiet base, “I will not die. Not like this.”  
Eugene drove the mech behind a hill, forcing the Mobile Suit closer. I could see it clearly in all of its terrible glory.  
“It cannot end here!” Orga continued. I watched the soldiers of the Third Army rally around the base. They were not going to give up either.  
The Mobile Suit raised the battle axe above its head. Just when it reached the peak of its motion and began to descend to pummel Orga and Eugene into dust, something happened.  
An explosion of dust burst from the hill before the Mobile Worker. At first I couldn’t see anything, then I saw the mace, then the Mobile Suit that had lain dormant in our generator room. It swung the mace like a baseball bat into the enemy Suit, destroying it.  
A visible wave of relief raced through he soldiers in the base. Most of them had stopped their jobs when the explosion had ripped through the ground. There was no need to make them resume. If Mika lost, they were all goners.  
“Sorry to keep you guys waiting.” I could hear the smile in Nadi’s voice. I was sure he would have a few more gray hairs when I next saw him. Maybe I would too.  
I looked back out on the battlefield. The pilots of our Mobile Workers had emerged from the cockpits to watch the fight and stare at the Mobile Suit before them, Unfortunately, the other two Suits that had been standing by had not liked that Mika took out one of their comrades. One of them fired up its thrusters and began its approach. Orga ordered everyone to stand down,  
Mika moved in front of the retreating enemy forces. The Mobile Suits would be unable to fire while he was there, unless they wanted to endanger the rest of their comrades. The second enemy Suit tried to stop him before he could position himself but he was too late. The ground cracks and released plumes of dust whenever the Mobile Suits landed, making it a little hard to watch.  
The Mobile Suit that had tried to cut Mika off now rushed him, Mika threw the Suit’s mace toward the approaching enemy then… Vanished. Well he appeared to vanish. I found him again directly above the enemy. He used gravity an his own momentum to slice the blade arm of the enemy completely off. Now it was left with a rifle and a cannon it couldn’t use. The remaining Glaze Mobile Suit used the dust kicked up by Mika to ambush him. Mika blocked the swing of the Glaze’s axe just in time. It opened its head cannon to fire at close range. The blast would be completely absorbed by Mikazuki’s Mobile Suit and not hit the fleeing enemy mechs.  
But it hesitated.  
Mikazuki used that moment to push in closer. The other Glaze moved to fire at him but Mika was too fast and he pushed away with a reaction speed that could nto have been possible without his Whiskers. A system that allowed the an uneducated pilot to control a Mobile Suit or Mobile Worker. Most of the boys on the base had at least one, Mika had three.  
Something was wrong with his thrusters, they sputtered weakly like they were out of fuel.  
Darnit Nadi! You always forget something!  
Mika Managed to come to a stop and then used his Mobile Suit’s mace to kick up a dust cloud for cover. The Glaze that had tried to fire at him before now rushed forward but Mika was faster. The Glaze stopped just in time and avoided a death blow. Mika’s mace did manage to rip the helmet of the Glaze clean off, exposing the deadly beam cannon beneath. Before either of them could move, the other Glaze rushed in. when the dust settled down a bit I could see them making a retreat.  
The line of retreating enemy Mobile Workers had gone, he was buying time for them, cheeky dog. I smiled at the enemy showing that he actually gave a care about the fate of his comrades, unlike our own First Army and President, abandoning us to die while they ran for the hills.  
I half thought Mika would go after them but the old Mobile Suit suddenly shut down.  
“Everyone, well done.” Orga said over the main comm. We’d done it. We managed to stay alive and kick the enemy back. A cheer rippled through the soldiers both on the field and at the base.  
“Well done, Orga.” I said through the headset. 

We were not stationary long. There were parts to salvage and wounded to rescue from the hulls of the downed Mobile Workers. Nadi had already gone out to get Mikazuki out of the old Mobile Suit cockpit.  
I was making rounds with a sack of first aid supplies, my headset around my neck. I twirled the piece of chalk in my hand. It was my job to go through the salvaged parts and figure out what could be reused to fix out own machines and what could be sold as scrap. Nadi would be busy with the old Suit so I was in charge for a while.  
Among the salvage and wounded were the mourning. Those who had lost friends in this battle could cry now that the fighting was over. I saw Shino crying over Danji and I felt a pain in my own heart that would only grow before the day let out. Takaki and Ride, two of the younger kids who had been friends with Danji, were doing their best. The boys were helping with the salvage jobs.  
Back at the base I had the wounded who could walk help those who could not. They were to relocate to a more covered position to reduce the risk of dehydration.  
I noticed Orga standing on one of the hills that overlooked the field of wrecked machines and bodies. His hands were balled into tight fists, I knew he was going to blame himself for everything, even thought it could have been much worse without his leadership.  
I started up the hill to him. He noticed but did not move. I stood beside him for a moment before saying: “None of this is your fault.”  
“I know.” He said quietly, his eyes were tight with the tears I knew he would not allow to fall.  
“Look at all of those people who are alive because of you, and Mika, and Akihiro, and Shino, and Eugene. Everyone on that field, those who are moving as well as those who aren’t, fought to protect their family. You helped them do that.”  
I noticed a scrape on his cheek.  
“Now, let me get that think on your face.”  
“There are others who need it more than me.”  
“Orga,” I said sharply, He paused to look at me, “This is something I don’t need to think about to do. I don’t have to think about the kids I saw die. Let me do this. Please.” My voice wavered a little and he relented.  
Akihiro arrived after a while with news of the First Army’s return, the survivors at least. We had used the signal flares stored on the back of one of their escape vehicles as a diversion to pull the main force of the enemy away from us. They were not going to be happy when they returned.  
Orga sighed and closed one eye in irritation. He nodded thanks to me and left for the confrontation we all knew was waiting for him. Captain of the First Army, Haeda, was likely not too pleased about being used as bait. 

By the end of the day, the final body count was 42 from the Third Army and 68 from the First Army. 

The dead were bound in linen and lined up out of the sun so they would not rot. When we were able to regroup a little bit, we would give them a funeral service. Well, it would mainly be for us. A way to recognize our loss and deal with it, then accept it and move on. Funerals were never really for the dead. 

Orga, Akihiro, Eugene, Biscuit, and Shino had gone to face Captain Haeda an hour or so ago. I had scrap metal to comb through and mechs to fix and I did not want to think about what haeda’s temper would make him do. I only hoped Orga and my friends could ride it out without conflict. We would deal with the First Army later.  
Nadi walked into the bay while Tamagi and I were debating whether t save or scrap one of our mechs.  
“Mikazuki came out of the cockpit okay?” I asked  
“Yeah, that kid is one tough little monster. ” Nadi sighed and took in the sheer amount of parts we had yet to pick through. He rubbed the back of his neck as if to work out an old ache.  
“I’m just glad he likes us” I said. It was true, I was quite grateful that Mikazuki was on our side.  
“haha me too. I’m glad all of you are on our side. You kids gave battle veterans a run for their money.”  
“Tamagi, I heard you were more help than Nadi over there.”  
“Just barely, he helped out a little.” Hearing those words out of the ever so quiet Tamagi made my day.  
“It’s not my fault I happen to be a fantastic teacher.” He rubbed his nose and looked quite pleased with himself. Tamagi and I shared a look before breaking into laughter.  
“What, it’s the truth!” He grabbed the two of us. Unfortunately the atmosphere was ruined by a fellow named Haeda.  
The First Army Captain stalked into the hangar with a lethal look in his eyes. There was blood on the sleeves of his jacket but no wounds on him. Something was wrong.  
“Aurora Tantas! When I get my hands on you I’ll-”  
“You’ll what?” Nadi asked in a deadly calm voice. I could not see his glare, but I could see Haeda’s reaction to it. I had never seen the bulky military man deflate so quickly beneath a glare. He saw me and restarted.  
“You knew those flares were on the trucks. The deaths of my men are on your hands.”  
“No Haeda, they’re on Gjallarhorn’s hands. Maybe even on your own. You abandoned us to be killed while you ran with your tail between your legs.” I stood up straight and refused to drop his stare. No weakness before predators, that was how you died.  
He held my stare for a while, I wanted to look away but my will held me in place. He broke first. Haeda turned to leave but stopped, “You’re lucky you had Nadi watching your back, other wise you’d end up like your friend Orga.”  
I was dumbstruck for a moment, the blood on his sleeves. Orga’s. What did he do. “What did you do?!”  
He flinched a bit at my anger. I rushed past him, first aid bag already slung around my shoulder.  
If he had beaten Orga, what had he done to the others? I would kill him myself if he harmed all of them. Not even Nadi would be able to stop me.  
I followed the stream of boys back to where The First and Third Corp had met. Biscuit had just come outside when I barreled into him. I nearly knocked the boy over when I searched him for any signs of recent damage.  
“Are you okay? Did he hit you?”  
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He said quickly. I was on to Akihiro by the time he finished with the first “fine”.  
They were all free of injury from Haeda.  
“geez Aurora, if all I had to do to get you that close to me was take a punch from Haeda, I’d have done it ages ago.” Shino Joked. The tall boy was so furious he was shaking likely at the First Army, I didn’t think he was alright with Danjis’ death yet. Eugene was a little pale, battle shock most likely. Tall, study Akihiro was unmoved and left shortly after he declared he was fine.  
I shifted my attention to Orga, who was on the ground, surrounded by splatters of blood. His blood. He looked slightly nervous from witnessing the anger I had arrived with.  
I took a breath to calm myself, “You look like hamburger meat.”  
They all started to laugh at the anticlimactic reaction.  
Orga coughed a bit, blood trickled down his chin. Probably a cut in his mouth from getting punched.  
“I think I look pretty damn good for the beating I got. While you patch me up, we need to fill you in on a plan.”


	4. Way

It was evening now. The sky was lit a beautiful gold that darkened as the sun descended. With the increasing darkness came a sort of stillness that only happens after a battle, or a great loss. It was as if the world itself was standing vigil for the soldiers. No, for the children who had given their lives to protect those they had come to see as family.  
Our base was still scuffed and bruised from the numerous bombs the enemy had launched at us. The vantage point the hill we were built on allowed a nearly full view of the destruction. There were black craters, still smoking from long ago blasts. Smears of oil stained the Mars dirt like blood, marking where the Mobile Workers of both sides had fallen.  
Our Mobile Workers that had escaped being completely destroyed were now lined up outside of their bays. Guns raised, they looked like spines for some ancient Earth beast. I sat upon the gun arm of one of those Mobile Workers, watching the sun and the boys who had survived. Our fallen were lined up outside of the base perimeter. Nadi would be holding a service for them in a few minutes. Boys were already beginning to fall in for the ceremony, to say goodbye to their friends one last time before Mars took them back.  
Not all of the children had elected to go to the service; there was still a perimeter to guard after all. There was also a coup to be planned.  
I listened in while Orga spoke of taking the base from the control of the First Army. He was a sight to see, bandaged and bruised from his run in with First Army Captain Haeda, but he still carried himself like a leader. Not everyone felt as confident about the plan as he did. Eugene was hesitant to go against their command, as usual.  
“How could we ever be able to take all of them on? It’s plain crazy!” He said nervously.  
“You’ve played with the idea before, is it really so strange to consider it now?” Orga said, his hands were on his hips in his usual fashion. He had one eye on Eugene.  
“I have but in this situation? We were just attacked! The Third lost so many people,” he made what could be interpreted as a pleading motion.  
“President Maruba, and the guys in the First, they’re worse than scum.” He looked at each of the boys before him, Shino, Biscuit, Eugene, then up at Akihiro and me, “They used us as shields so they could escape with their lives. They only think of us as tools to be used and then tossed away. When they leave, so will the business. They’ll take on the dangerous assignments and we’ll be killed.”  
“If we leave here, there are no jobs for kids like us.” Biscuit said.  
“So we have no other choice but to have a coup.” Eugene relented.  
Orga looked at Akihiro. The stern boy sat above me, atop the hatch of the Mobile Worker’s cockpit.  
“What will you do Akihiro?” Orga asked?  
He considered it for a moment before standing up, saying: “We’re the Human Debris of Mars. We’re not here of our own free will. I’ll follow who ever is in charge of this place.” He looked up at the burnt gold sky for a moment, “Whether its them or you guys.”  
He walked away, leaving me alone on the mobile worker. Orga’s yellow eyes fell on me now. Something had changed in them, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  
“What will you do Aurora?”  
The rest of the boys looked up at me too. I weighed my options. I was definitely not going to leave with the First Army, especially with Haeda’s threat from before. I was not an adult yet so I couldn’t apply for a business license to open my own mechanic shop. Nadi wasn’t about to leave either.  
“I’ll follow you Orga,” His shoulders relaxed a little bit, “but you’d better not lead us into a death trap.”  
That got a few smiles out of their somber faces. Orga shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants and nodded, “No promises, but I’ll do my best not to.”  
Eugene stepped forward now, hands on his own hips like how Orga had stood before, “Now that it’s decided, let’s have a strategy meeting.”  
“What about Mikazuki, what does he think?” Biscuit asked.  
“Oh! I forgot.” Orga rubbed the back of his head.  
“How could you forget?” Shino muttered quietly, I had to agree. It was a little unlike him to forget about Mika like that.  
“If Mika isn’t on board, then I’m sorry but we’ll cancel and find another way.”  
“What” Eugene asked  
“Orga!” Shino and I said at the same time.  
“Not that it’ll happen.” Orga turned to look at the sky  
“If he know’s I’m serious about it, Mika will agree with it.”  
After a while they all went their own ways. Biscuit’s sisters had hitched a ride into the base on our delivery truck so he was off to help them store away the food and prepare dinner. He was such a good cook; I was more than a little excited.  
I was thinking about this when I jumped down from the Mobile Worker’s gun. I didn’t notice Orga still standing there, watching me.  
“What’s up?” I asked.  
He opened his mouth then reconsidered what he was going to say, “Do you know where Mika is?”  
I nodded and pointed out toward the old Mobile Suit he had piloted to protect us all, “He took a fuel truck out there earlier, He’s probably still there if he hasn’t started driving back already.”  
Orga thanked me and moved to walk by before he stopped. Before I could ask what was wrong he suddenly moved a hand to my face, catching me completely off guard. He moved a calloused thumb over my cheek, then caught my confused look. “You had some dirt on your face.” He said with a grin and showed me a streak of grime that had come off on his hand.  
I grimaced at him, “Don’t act strange like that. I thought something was wrong with you.”  
I walked away from him and headed out toward the small group of boys gathering around Nadi. When I was sure he was gone I moved my hand to my cheek, I could still feel his hand there. I felt a warmth start in my chest before I snapped out of it.  
Gah!  
I was being so dumb!  
I had a job to do and this was no time for whatever that had been. I pushed Orga out of my head in time to listen to Nadi go through the simple speech he had written for the kids. 

 

The ceremony was short, as it should have been. Nadi said a few kind things about bravery and sacrifice. The kids who had gathered finally cried when he finished. We all helped dig graves for them after; it went quicker with all of the kids. The work seemed to help them out, comfort in familiarity and all that stuff.  
Nadi and I were sitting on a hill outside of the base, looking at the stars like we did when I was younger. Neither of us knew the constellations so we would make up pictures for each one. That didn’t happen this night.  
“Do you remember, the day I found you in the alley? After your father died from that big sickness?” Nadi broke the silence that had fallen over us.  
There had been a plague sweeping through the poorest neighborhoods. Dad just had to help everyone. If there was anything he could do for someone, he’d usually do it. Ended up getting himself killed for it.  
“Yeah, I thought I was going to die that day.”  
“Mm, you almost did after that.” Those first few days on the base were a blurr of color. I must have been in pretty rough shape.  
“What brought this on? Are you wishing you could reconsider your decision?” I tried to joke but it fell a little flat.  
“Only sometimes, like when you taught Yamagi to talk back.”  
I laughed, “What can I say, I’m a good teacher.”  
He laughed hard at that. To the point where I got a little suspicious.  
“What!?”  
“No, no, you’re fine. How else would I have a small army of tool boys without you?” I still pouted a bit.  
“No, I was thinking about how you kids really took charge. I was down with the Suit but I heard the boys talking about you. I think you may have a little following like Mikazuki at this point.”  
“Oh.” I said, a little embarrassed at the idea, “I only did what you taught me to do. If anyone deserves credit, it’s you.”  
“Hmm.” We sat there longer, it was strange how normal this felt. As if there hadn’t just been a giant battle that morning. As if we had not lost so many people. No matter how bad out situation was, Mars did not care. It would continue to spin whether we were there or not, life would go on. It was sobering to put our struggles into perspective like that. 

Dinner was a little livelier than I expected. Only the Third Army was present by then, apparently the First Army had deigned the pavilion to be too beneath them. All the better for Orga’s plan.  
Biscuit was helping Atra out in the kitchen. I nodded to him when we arrived. He nodded back. His two little sisters, Cookie and Cracker, were running around with the stew. They were enthusiastic little things, long brown hair similar to that of their brother, the same happy eyes and easy smiles. I think they were a part of the lightened atmosphere.  
The lady, Miss Bernstein was there as well. I was pretty sure the twins had conscripted her into helping out with the food prep. She seemed pretty nervous about it. It must have been hard for her to be in a place she had no experience with. I remembered Nadi saying she had tried to help out when he was putting the suit together. She looked nice enough.  
She wore a long sleeved off white shirt and baggy pants. Her hair was pulled back into a rather long ponytail. The older boys were looking at her as if they had never seen a girl before.  
“They should stop staring so hard, they’ll pull something.” I muttered as I spooned a bit of stew into my mouth. Nadi looked at the boys and laughed.  
“You can’t blame them, she’s a new sight. They’ll calm down soon.”  
“E-excuse me.” I heard a soft voice behind me. When I turned around I saw Miss Bernstein. She was looking at the ground as if she were shy or embarrassed, I couldn’t decide.  
“What’s up?” I asked.  
“Are you Aurora Tantas? I was told you were one of the mechanics here.”  
“That’s me,” I wiped my hands on a napkin, “What can I do for you?”  
Nadi looked on in amusement. A couple of the boys were watching the two of us with large eyes. Did they think I would eat her or something?  
“Oh nothing, nothing!” She held up her hands, “I. I heard about what you did last night and this morning and I just wanted to introduce myself and say hello.”  
I stood up and held out my hand, “Nice to meet you Miss Kurdelia.”  
She blinked at my hand for a moment and then clapped her hand in mine, “Same to you Aurora.”  
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Biscuit leave with Shino and Eugene. They were taking dinner to the people in he First tonight.  
“Do you need any help with the food? I’m no good at cooking but I make a good dish washer!”  
I left Nadi to his own devices and started on the dishes. One by one the boys filed out for the night. A couple of them said shy goodbyes to Kurdelia, it caught me off guard when a few of them saluted me. I returned them of course.

I left when Biscuit returned with Eugene and Shino. Bscuit stayed a while longer but the other two ran to catch up with me. We walked in silence for a while until the cheerful light of the pavilion was long behind us.  
“Did any of them even look the least bit sorry?” I asked.  
“A couple did. Most of them gave us glares when we passed by.” Shino answered. He had not taken Danji’s death well, there hadn’t even been a body to bury when they combed over the wreck of his Mobile Worker.  
“Karma has a way of coming around though. I’m sure Orga’ll make sure of that.” Eugene said confidently.  
“How long until everything happens?” I asked.  
Eugene thought for a second, “Biscuit said the sedatives should kick in about an hour eating. They were already all in their bunks so nothing should tip them off.”  
That would mean we had a few minutes left before the First Army was out cold. When that happened we would have to be quiet to avoid catching the attention of the rest of the Third, let alone the First Army.  
“Do you have a place in mind?“  
“Yea there’s an equipment room just down the hall that should be large enough for all of them” Shino answered.  
“Quiet guys.” Eugene shushed us. We were near the hallway where the First Army bunkers were. The doors were open, they didn’t expect anyone to come in and mess with them. After all, who would expect a bunch of space rats to mess with the big dogs of the base?  
We set to work. I would tie their thumbs together with black ties Shino had swiped from the maintenance bays. It was more effective than tying the wrists together without the risk of cutting off circulation. If they wanted to get loose they would have to break their thumbs to do so.  
Biscuit arrived by the time we got to the second set of bunks. I was a little jealous that they got two rooms while we were made to sleep in a converted bay. It took all three of the boys to move captain Haeda. The man certainly did not skip any of his meals, lucky for us.  
Mikazuki appeared when they had finally managed to move Haeda into the equipment closet. No one made a sound until the door was closed and we were in a separate hall.  
“I can’t believe that worked!” Shino and Eugene laughed nervously, the adrenaline kicking in.  
“you ready Mika?” I looked at him, he was fiddling with something in his pocket.  
“Yeah, can you help me put this on after?” He showed me a pretty black bracelet. I had a good idea as to who it had come from. I remembered seeing Atra, a girl who worked at the grocery we bought food from, talking to Nadi. It was pretty obvious that she had had a crush on Mikazuki for a while now.  
“Of course Mika.” I smiled at him.  
“Thanks.” He offered a small smile in return. he seemed so innocent and young, not at all like someone who could pilot a Mobile Worker, let alone defeat a glaze with an ancient Mobile Suit. Just thinking of all of the parts that could be salvaged from the downed Glaze made my hands itch.  
I didn’t notice that Mika had a gun until Orga showed up. He looked cold, distant, like a military leader. Someone very different from the Orga I grew up knowing.  
“Mika, why do you have a gun?” I asked gently. Eugene, Biscuit, and Shino looked down.  
“Orga asked if I could do it, if it came down to that.” Mika looked up at me, “If I think it’s the best way I’ll use it. If there’s a better way I won’t. Promise.”  
“Okay.” I did trust him more than the others to not let his emotions get the better of him. I still didn’t like that Orga had asked this of him.  
“Don’t become like them Orga.” The mask didn’t move a bit.  
“Mika I can tie the bracelet for you tomorrow morning if you want.”  
“Okay!”  
Now I knew why he’d made a point of asking me to tie it after the confrontation.  
He didn’t want to get blood on it.


	5. The

I made sure to get an early start the next morning. I heard about what had happened in the equipment room the night before from Biscuit after the guys had come back. Orga and had not spoken about it and I had no desire to hear people talk about death like it was a good thing.  
Something about what happened to Haeda and Sasai did not seem right to me. Yeah they were not the best of guys but, darnit they were people. I had known Mika would use the gun. There had been no point in convincing myself otherwise. They had abandoned us to die. We were outgunned until Nadi had worked his magic on that old Mobile Suit, Barbatos he called it. Was that any different from Haeda being tied up?  
Machines were easier to understand: they worked or they did not. They did not make you feel conflicted. They did not take out their anger on other people.  
I was working on one of the Mobile Workers that had been trucked up from the battle field. It was in decent shape but one of the gun arms had to be removed. There was enough scrap that I could cobble together a replacement by the end of the day. Okay I could do it if the circuitry was not shot. I hated to admit it but the little electronics and wires were beyond my skills.  
I had finally managed to remove the larger broken parts of the arm and had started in on the smaller bits. A tag of metal was twisted beyond repair, rather than getting a proper tool I tried to pull it off with my bare hands; like an idiot I might add.  
It did not work of course. My hand slipped and a jagged bit of metal opened up my palm. I swore and slammed my other hand on the body of the mobile worker, all it did was hurt my hand.  
I swore again, it made me feel better so I added another one in for good measure. I looked down at the gash on my palm: it would leave a scar. My hands were so covered in scars from working on the machines without wearing gloves that it was hard to pick out where one started and another ended. 

“Ari.” I looked up to see Mikazuki waiting in the doorway.  
“Hey Mika, I didn’t hear you.”  
“You’re bleeding.” He stated.  
“Yeah, I made a dumb mistake.” He had already gotten one of the first aid kits by the time he walked over.  
I let him clean the gash, the sting of antiseptic helped clear my head a little bit.  
“I don’t think less of you because of what happened in the Equipment room.”  
“I know,” He looked up at me and smiled, “It was the best way to keep other people safe.”  
I smiled back, “I’m just sick of people dying. That’s all.”  
He nodded.  
“Thank you Mikazuki. Do you still need help with the bracelet?”

 

We worked on the gun arm together for a while until he left on some errand. I was grateful for the company. Mikazuki was less complicated than other people tended to be.  
The base had woken up by then, Nadi came in with an entourage of tool boys. We waved at each other. He sent the boys off on various assignments before walking over to me.  
“How long have you been here? That mech’s arm was pretty screwed up.” He was looking over the patches Mika and I had put in.  
“Since before the sun came up. Mika stopped by and helped out. It wasn’t too far gone and he left after plugging into the system to make sure everything was working out.” I tried to hide my bandaged hand but I knew he saw it. Bless him for not saying anything about it.  
“Good work.”  
I nodded to the boys, “How are they doing?”  
“As good as they’re going to be for a while.”  
“Are you going to leave like the rest of the adults?”  
He coughed a bit, “you don’t dance around the big questions do you?”  
I stared at him. If he left I would lose the closest thing I had to a father. He would not dare leave me, or the rest of the kids here to fend for ourselves.  
His expression softened, “Of course I’m staying.”  
“Good.” I looked out at the yard in front of the bay. Barbatos had been moved there after Mikazuki refueled it, the Ahab Generator it carried was hooked back up to our base again. It looked a little scuffed but otherwise fine.  
“What are you gonna do with it now?”  
Nadi turned toward the old Mobile Suit. It was very much a different beast than the Grazes. They appeared similar, except for the paint job that is, and resembled the human figure to a degree. Barbatos had a more defined head that looked like a samurai helmet rather than an old army helmet like the Graze models. I had failed to notice the missing shoulder armor during the fight, I was pretty sure Yamagi and I could work out how to fit it with armor salvaged from Gjallarhorn’s downe Graze.  
“It needs a tune up in the cockpit,” He glanced down at me. He was so tall my head barely came up past his chest. I remember being younger and sitting on his shoulders while he showed be how to fix some part of a mech the ground looked so far away.  
“Takaki and Yamagi can help me out with that, you,” He wagged a finger at me, “need to eat something and take a nap before I let you lay a finger on Barbatos.”  
I tried to snap out something witty but my stomach ruined the moment with a loud growl. It was not a battle I would win, especially when my own body was against me. So I admitted defeat and retreated.

Of course, the only quiet place on the base was the generator room, vacant by then. It had previously been where Barbatos was stored, its twin Ahab Reactors tapped to power the base. By then it was just another empty hangar.  
There were still cables lying where Yamagi and Nadi had dropped them the day before. A little light from the sun trickled in through the bay doors Mika had forced Barbatos through the day before.  
I sat down on the concrete shelf that had served as a blockade to keep people from getting too close to the hydraulics of the Suit’s bay. The bits of metal and gathered dust did not bother me; I was too tired at that point. What did bother me was how easily my friends could take the life of another.  
I rested my head back on my hands and looked up and the blue sky through the blasted bay doors. I guess if it was for the good of the group, killing was okay. Orga had not ordered Mikazuki to kill everyone, only Sasai and Haeda. It wasn’t as if society would feel their loss too deeply.  
Then again, I thought before I finally drifted off, would society feel the loss of any of our lives?  
There was something warm on my head. The feeling woke me up enough that I realized how sore my hip was from napping on hard concrete. I nearly moved before I realized it was Orga sitting beside me, one of his hands rested on my head. So that’s what woke me up.  
I opened one of my eyes just a fraction of a millimeter. He seemed lost in thought at that moment. Of course the only time he’d ever let his guard down was when he thought no one was conscious to see it.  
“Maruba took nearly everything when he turned tail. We only had enough funds to operate for another three months max. And Biscuit was being generous when he said that.”  
Ah, so that was it. He was worried about money.  
“There’s been talk of giving Kurdelia up to Gjallarhorn and begging their forgiveness.” There was anger in his voice. I opened my eyes fully.  
“That’s not who we are, that’s what a coward would do. I don’t want to be the one who sells out our clients to save our skin.”  
“It’s a good thing we have a leader who’s not like that then.” I said. He removed his hand and I shifted into a sitting position. My head barely reached his shoulder even when we were sitting down. It was funny to think we had ever been the same size. A long time ago.  
“They’ll follow you, Orga. We all will.” I shot him a cheeky grin, “Akihiro and I will just knock your lights out if you do something stupid.”  
He gave me a halfhearted grin and opened his mouth to say something else when the alarm siren went off. We froze and looked at each other for a moment, Gjallarhorn? This soon?!  
“Lookout reporting one Gjallarhorn Mobile Suit approaching.” There was a pause, “It’s, ah, well it’s got a red cloth with it too.”  
We were moving from the moment Gjallarhorn’s name came through. Worried shouts echoed through the halls to us as boys rushed to see what was going on. They came from the direction of the battlefield.  
I could not see it at first; the mobile suit was barely a dot on the horizon. It’s pilot had emerged and seemed to be waiting for us to assemble. Orga and I had caught a ride on a passing truck; we picked Biscuit up along the way. The boys who could walk on their own were assembled around the truck, Nadi stood with Takaki, Tamagi, and Ride, while Mikazuki was off to one side.  
We had passed the Barbatos on the way over. Nadi had worked quickly to outfit the Suit with the shoulder armor of the fallen Graze. It looked like he had barely finished when the siren called out, some of the welding equipment hung off of the mech like vines.  
Biscuit had just come from a meeting with the accounting guy who had been forced to stay on site. Even though he had chosen to leave he had cooperated with them up to that point. He was on the top of another truck with Todo, who had, for some reason or another, chosen to hang around. I would bet my last cent that he was the one who brought up the idea of surrendering Kurdelia.  
“It’s a challenge,” I heard Nadi say to someone, “That’s how they used to settle conflicts during the Calamity War: a one on one duel.”  
Before he could say anything else, the Gjallarhorn pilot addressed us, “I am Crank Zent of the Front Line Troops. I wish to fight one on one with a representative of your choosing.” Everyone looked at Mikazuki.  
“If I win, I demand the return of the captured Graze,” Nadi and I exchanged a glance, “as well as the surrender of Kurdelia Aine Bernstein t the custody of Gjallarhorn.”  
Todo yelled something about being right but the pilot drowned him out, “When the duel is settled and the graze and Miss Bernstein are in our hands I will ensure that there is no further conflict between our organizations.”  
What kind of conditions were those? I looked back at Orga. He’d crossed his arms in disapproval. Many people began talking at once about Kurdelia and what would happen if they got a hold of her.  
“Enough!” The chorus fell silent, “I will go, there does not need to be anymore meaningless conflict. If I go with him everything will settle down correct?”  
Todo called for negotiations for money if there was a peaceful exchanged. Orga cut him off, “We don’t know what will happen if we hand you over to them.”  
“Remember, they tried to kill you not too long ago.” Biscuit added quickly.  
Kurdelia held up a hand, “I don’t plan on just rolling over and dying. I will try to find a way to have them hear me.”  
Biscuit did not like the sound of that, he and Todo argued about the likelihood of Gjallarhorn actually listening. I agreed with Biscuit that it was a slim shot and probably would end up failing.  
“You said you’d stop me from doing something stupid right?” I realized Orga had spoken to me alone.  
I nodded.  
“I’m not going to hand her over.” He said in a louder voice, “We can’t trust that man’s words that everything will magically get better.”  
He turned to Mikazuki who had likely tuned out the conversation entirely, “Mika!”  
“What?”  
“Can you do it?”  
“Okay.” Just like that, no hesitation. Mikazuki would kill that man because Orga had determined it was the best way to protect all of us. And I agreed. 

 

Yamagi rigged up a loud speaker from the comm system in one of the trucks. It squealed a bit with feedback when Orga picked it up. Nadi, Mika and I were already on our way back to where Barbatos was stationed when Orga gave the confirmation of the duel. I glanced over at Mika but he seemed as unmoved as ever.  
“Sorry I missed out on the upgrades, what else did you manage to do to the mech?” I asked.  
Nadi braked to a skidding stop in front of Barbatos, “Not much, we were running a system optimization when the siren went off. That and the armor is all we managed.”  
It would have to do. Mikazuki could handle it. I hoped.  
There were boys gathered around the base of the Mobile Suit yelling encouragement to Mika. I shooed them out of the way and ran to disconnect the power cables from the Ahab reactor. Nadi was up at the cockpit with Mika. I waved to get his attention and gave a thumbs-up. Everything was disconnected, he was clear.  
“Back up!” We shouted to the soldiers nearest to the mech. They hurried to make a gap for the Suit’s thrusters to fire up. The resultant gust of wind made me wish I had not left my jacket back in the generator hangar. Orga yelled words of encouragement up to his old friend, the younger boys quickly followed suit. Soon nothing could be heard over the chorus of shouts and whistles.  
After he was gone everyone piled into the remaining trucks to rush out to see the duel. They would be fighting on the old battlefield where, just the other day, we had collected the bodies of our fallen. Even the oil stains of the shattered mechs had not yet faded.  
Orga, Biscuit, and Kurdelia stood out at the front of the ledge, I hung back to watch from the truck. My legs dangled over the sides, Tamagi and I shared a pair of binoculars. Around us the boys watched anxiously, some had climbed up top with us to try for a better view.  
The two Mobile Suits stood like statues against the purple and pink sky. It would have been beautiful if not for what we stood to lose. The best way for us to succeed was for Mika to kill that pilot I understood that. Regardless of my feelings about death and killing this was the only way for my friends to be safe. Orga had made the right decision. I had to trust him.  
The Graze moved suddenly, Tamagi and I jumped at the same time. Both Suits fire dup their thrusters but it was the enemy who closed first. He and Mikazuki locked weapons, the aftershock sent waves of dust up around them. Mika struck repeatedly but the Graze’s shield held out. After one such exchange the enemy swung his battle axe up only for it to be caught on the pole end of Mika’s mace. It seemed to be another stalemate until Mika brought the leg of his mech up into a kick that shoved the enemy back a few hundred meters.  
He paused there a moment, I could feel Yamagi tense up beside me. Mikazuki burst forward and brought his mace down on the Graze. This time the shield was no match for the force behind the blow and it shattered, leaving the enemy wide open. They went back and forth again and again and it looked like Mika was going to win. The Graze was losing ground but kept up with the barrage. Mika charged again but the enemy pilot sacrificed the arm of his Graze in order to catch the mace. He swung the battle-axe around but Mika managed to avoid it. The pole end of the mace was ripped clean off.  
The metal swung into a high arc, I did not need binoculars to know where it would land, “Incoming!” I yelled.  
Orga did not so much as twitch when the broken pole impaled itself into the dirt a mere handful of meters from where he was standing. I smiled to myself, cocky jerk.  
“Look!“ Yamagi brought my attention back to the fight. Mika was caught by the Graze, then something happened. The mace doubled as a pile driver, sending a spear straight through the center of the mech. The fight was over. Mika had won. I let Yamagi have the binoculars. I did not want to watch a man be killed even if he was our enemy.

We gathered in one of the open yards, away from the assembled mobile workers. Mika had piloted the Barbatos back to the maintenance bay and in the morning a team would go out to salvage the Graze. We might even be able to cobble together a functioning Mobile Suit between the two wrecks.  
Mika was surrounded by a group of admiring boys, Takaki and Ride included of course. Of course the mood did not last for long.  
Todo was the first to break it, “What have you done Mikazuki!”  
He arrived flanked by Eugene and Shino. Of course Shino seemed to just be following them, he looked quite confused at the outburst, especially when Eugene joined in.  
“yes, do you realize what you’ve done?! We were so close to getting Gallarhorn off our backs!” He exclaimed.  
“Who cares? He won!” Shino said good-naturedly.  
“That’s not important! We could have raked in the cash if we had turned the Lady in to them.” I narrowed my eyes at the man. Something about Todo was beginning to irk me by that point.  
“Excuse me.” Kurdelia’s voice rang through the yard. Todo’s face went white when he saw her. She had traded her fatigues and long sleeved shirt for a red dress fit for a diplomat. Her maid followed behind her.  
“I would like to continue the escort mission. To Earth that is. Would you be willing to continue with the job as well?”  
All eyes were on Orga and Biscuit. They said nothing so Miss Kurdelia continued, “You would be able to stay in business for a while, I have a backer who will be able to provide funds to cover the expenses of the trip.”  
“A backer?” Biscuit asked.  
“Yes, he has supported me as a sponsor in the independence movement. His name is Nobliss Gordon.”  
Biscuit made a choking noise, the man must have been important. Orga of course had no idea what the name meant.  
“Who’s that?” He asked bluntly.  
“I’ve heard of him. He’s some super rich guy.” Todo growled.  
There were excited murmurs through the crowd. The boys were not afraid of Gjallarhorn even though we had lost so many friends to them. Miss Kurdelia had given them hope.  
I looked to Orga. He had also been watching the reactions around us. He turned back to face Miss Kurdelia and smiled. With a bow he said, “Thank you for the continued employment. We Tekkaden will ensure your safe journey to Earth.”  
The name caught me off guard. Tekkaden. Iron Flower. How had he come up with that one? Maybe he was secretly a poet. Oh I was going to tease him so hard about it.  
I was not the only one confused by the name. When asked, Orga replied that it would be the name of our new company rather than continuing to operate under the banner of CGS. Shino was all for it with his usual infectious enthusiasm, soon the other boys were as well. Well, except for Eugene who yelled about Orga being a tyrant and not consulting anyone else on the title. Unfortunately for him, Mikazuki approved of the name and it stuck.  
From then on we would be called Tekkaden: the iron flowers that would never wilt.


	6. World

            Iron flowers; the ones that will never wilt. I twirled my wrench through my fingers as I sat on one of the less beat up mobile workers. It had been a few days since they had seen any action and we had made good headway with all of them. I looked over at the crew of older boys performing checks on the cleared mechs. One would run through the system while he other would run down the list, the only reason they could figure out what the words meant was because they had memorized them after looking at them for so long.

            Maruba hadn’t seen the point in teaching a bunch of kids how to read. My jaw clenched and I stopped twirling the wrench. Nadi and I worked with what we could and some of them knew a few words but it was nothing like a real classroom with lessons and a teacher.

            I sighed: just another thing to work on.

            Our base was still a mess from the artillery fire we took. The watch tower still had a chunk taken out of it, rubble littered the ground, a few of the fences still had holes. The boys didn’t seem to notice, most of them were so focused on their jobs that the mess wasn’t even on their radar. Even soldiers like them were still just kids at heart.

            “Ari!” Nadi’s voice rang over the courtyard. I looked over to where he and Mikazuki were working on the Barbatos: he was waving me over.

            “Yamagi,” His blue eyes met my green ones, “You’re in charge over here, ‘kay?”

            He nodded and turned back to the wires he was reconnecting.

            Shino was just walking out of one of the bunkers; a group of the younger boys followed him. He had been in charge of physical training before the takeover; I guess some things didn’t change. We nodded hello.

            I jumped down from the Mobile Worker. I grabbed the jacket I had draped over the back leg support. CGS stood out in bright white against the dark green fabric. I picked at it, the ink Maruba had ordered for the lettering was cheap and peeled off easily. There was a print screen somewhere in the base for when the lettering had to be redone, usually one of the younger boys had to do it. Even I had done it for a while, back when I had been too weak to do anything useful in the garage.

            I tied the jacket around my waist and headed Nadi’s way. The Barbatos had taken a beating in the fight against that Gjallarhorn Graze, most of the armor was dinged up, the shoulder guards needed to be replaces, and the Ahab reactors needed to be synced up. I put my hands on my hips, how they heck was this pile of junk supposed to make it in outer space. It said a lot about Mika’s piloting ability that he was able to use such an old thing.

            “What’s up Nadi?” I called when I walked up. The Graze was crumpled beside Barbatos; it looked more salvageable. I automatically started a list of what could and could not be saved and what could be used from the other Graze. Nadi interrupted me when I was halfway done.

            “What do you think of them?” He nodded toward the two Mobile Suits. At least the Barbatos was standing. I was half expecting something to spark and fall off of both of them.

            “I think,” I put my hand on his shoulder, “it’s a darn good thing that Tekkadan has you as a head mechanic.”

            He laughed at me. Mika poked his head out of the cockpit in confusion before hiding again.

            “What’s the first thing you would do with that Graze?” He inclined his head toward the mech. What would I do?

            “Make sure the system was still operational, that the Ahab reactor was viable. Then I would have the system spit out a list of what was wrong and work from there. There are probably a couple armor pieces that could be cannibalized from the other Graze.”

            “Good, get started on it.”

            “What?” I asked blankly.

            “That’s your responsibility. Get started. Tekkadan still has to escort Miss Bernstein right? They’re going to need at least one suit that’s space-ready.”

            I jumped up and hugged him before he could say anything more. Mobile Workers were on thing, a Suit. A Mobile Suit. This was such a step up.

            Takaki chose that moment to walk up.

            “Is there anything I can help with?”

            I smiled at him.

 

 

            Takaki was pretty good at working with the machines. In under two hours we had a more or less complete diagnosis for the Graze’s problems. We were much better off than Nadi and Mika, I heard more than one swear word from his direction.

            Yamagi eventually joined us. He had left the older boys to the Mobile Workers so he could do the interesting stuff. I was torching off a particularly twisted bit of armor, using gloves this time, when Orga and Biscuit came by.

            They had been in a planning meeting with Miss Kudelia, Eugene, and Todo. Todo had been lurking around the Mobile Workers earlier. He reminded me of a rat but he seemed harmless enough. I really wanted to shave off his stupid little mustache though.

            I caught the gist of the conversation while I worked the broken bit off. Nadi didn’t know if he could get Barbatos space-ready. Mika didn’t seem too concerned about it.

            “Ari!” I heard Orga’s voice. I popped my head over the side of the Graze, “What’s your estimate for this one?”

            I thought for a second, “With help hauling parts from the other Graze? We could have it done in two days.”

            He nodded. It looked like there was something he wanted to say but he stopped and turned away. A flood of the younger boys came in with a truckload of parts and distracted me. Orga was gone by the time I looked up again.

 

           

            I was a good mechanic but there were things even I couldn’t do, like work with the computers on the cockpits. I had been able to help with the installation of the interface but when it came to the fine-tuning, that was something only Tamagi could do.

            “I’ll be back in a bit.” I called to them.

            “Is there anything else you would like us to do, Miss Aurora?” Takaki asked.

            “Yamagi has the complete list but other than getting this guy up and fixing his broken bits we just have to attach thrusters and re do his nano-laminate coat.”

            Takaki’s head seemed to steam at the list. I guess it was rather long.

            “But don’t worry, we have a few days. And we’ve already made good progress.” I looked over at Nadi, Yamagi grinned a little bit.

            “Mister Nadi might need more help, Takaki.” Yamagi said.

           

            I left the two at it and headed inside. I ran into Ride on my way to grab food. He was so absorbed in his Ele-pad that we actually ran into each other.

            “Oh! Sorry.” He said without looking up from his pad.

            “What are you doing Ride?” When he got into something it was usually because one of the older boys put him up to it.

            He looked at me shyly, “Orga asked me to draw something.”

            “For what?” Of course it was Orga.

            “Tekkadan.”

            “May I see it?”

            “Um, sure.” He handed me the pad, “It’s not finished yet so it’s kinda bad.”

            On the pad were sketches of a flower. Well, flower could apply to some of them at least.

            “Theses are pretty good. It’s for the company insignia, right?” I had noticed CGS was crossed out in white paint on the buildings. At first I had thought someone was just trying to be funny, this made much more sense. Then I remembered the silk screen.

            “When Orga chooses the one he likes,” I handed the pad back to Ride, “Find me, I have an idea.”

            “What is it?” poor kid, he looked confused.

            “You’ll see.” I walked off toward the storage units.

 

            It had taken some time but eventually I found the silk screening machine and had it running again. Whoever had used it last had allowed the joints in the arms to get rusty. Now instead of looking like a broken down six-legged monster with flyswatter arms, it looked like a working one. I was rummaging through the types of paint when Ride found me.

            “He picked one!” The boy beamed. He shoved the pad into my face, the flower looked like a stylized lily: it would be simple to set out and press.

            “Perfect. You ever done print duty?”

            He nodded. It took a few minutes but we managed to get the CGS logo off of our jackets. It helped that the ink was so cheap.

            There were a few containers of high quality ink we were only allowed to use for the First Army prints. They wouldn’t miss it anymore. We worked in excited silence, Ride traced out the design and I set it up on the machine. We stretched the jackets over the press and tried to center them as well as we could. It would be a bit of a pain to do this for all of Tekkadan, the look one everyone’s faces would be worth it.

            “Ride, what do you think of Tekkadan?”

            “What’da ya mean?” He laid the stencil down on one of the jackets, “Like how I think about it?”

            “I guess.”

 

 

“Hmm, well I guess I’d think of it as my family.”

            Family. That was something not many of us had. There were a few kids, Like Biscuit, who had relatives they supported. Then there was me with Nadi as my adoptive parent. Did I consider these boys to be my family?

            Maybe. I did consider them my friends. Was it such a large distance to cross, to consider them my family?

            “Done!” Ride lifted the jacket to the drying table; I followed with my own jacket.

            “We can make more after lunch!” He said excitedly.

            “There’s no rush, besides I still have to work on that Graze.” We left the printing room and headed to the maintenance yard.

            “I can help!”

            I smiled, “Let’s see where Yamagi and Takaki are at with it. They should have made some progess with the cockpit.”

 

            “Nadi! Where’s Mika?” I called up to him. He was working on a shoulder guard with Yamagi. The Graze was in one piece now, mostly. There was a lot of armor missing that would probably take an entire day to complete.

            The big man wiped his brow and looked down at me, “He left to help out on Biscuit’s family’s farm. Took miss Bernstein with him too.”

            That was, different. How would that girl do on the farm? Mika probably had something up his sleeve. I had been meaning to talk to Biscuit about the farm equipment but that could wait till he returned.

            “Yamagi how’s the Graze?”

            “Cockpit was installed and works, I got asked to help Mr. Nadi before I could do the rest of the hydraulics.”

            “No worries, I’ll take care of it.” Praise that boy. I remembered when he first came to CGS: he had been so shy. It had taken ages for him to just respond with more than one word. He caught on quickly and had become very good at working with the mechs. Officially, Yamagi was considered my apprentice though we both knew it was Nadi who was in charge of most of the teaching. Though I wasn’t quite sure who Yamagi learned computer stuff from, certainly not Nadi and definitely not me.

            I grabbed a tool belt and goggles from one of the open chests and headed over to the Graze. Most of the damage had been to the cockpit and arm areas. I could weld out the surface damage; the wires were a different story. Yamagi and Takaki had already labeled the wires, some of them were already fixed but a lot of them weren’t.

            I started up the Graze, without the AV system I was useless in a fight but I could figure out what was wrong with the hydraulic system. While I was running through the system a bit of color caught my eye. There was a picture lodged into the control deck, like it had fallen when they changed out the seat interface. I managed to remove it with a pair of pliers.  

            There were three people in the photo, one old guy, one snobby looking blond, and a guy with black hair. The black haired one was handsome and was smiling like he’d just done something amazing. I wondered what it was. The old man must have been the pilot Mika killed. I quickly stuffed the picture into a pocket of my work pants. Putting a face to the man we killed made me uncomfortable.

            Luckily that was the time the computer identified the problem. It was in the elbow joint of the arm Mika had damaged. From the system report, none of the major frame was damaged but the arm needed the armor replaced and the dings knocked out of it. I was about to shut the system down again when I noticed Ride.

            He was jumping up and down with paints and rollers in hand.

            “Aurora!” He called, “Can you give me a boost?”

            Oh, he meant to the old CGS logo. How did I move this thing again? Oh yeah. It was just a bunch of triggers and hand held controls. It was a lot like the Mobile Workers if you didn’t think about the humanoid shape. I maneuvered the undamaged arm down to Ride. After he loaded his gear on and wound a security strap around a secure part of the machine I lifted the mech’s hand so that it was level with the old logo.

            “Perfect! Thank you!” He gave me a thumbs-up. I locked the arm in place and opened the cockpit.

            “What are you doing?” I asked, the boy had begun pouring paint into a bin.

            “The Boss asked me to paint the logo here.” It was funny to hear Orga called “Boss” I held my snicker in. Ride probably wouldn’t have appreciated it.

            He went back to his painting and I climbed down the Graze’s arm. The lack of armor made it easier to see where the problems were. I would need the big torches to fix some of the dents but most of it could be done with what I had.

            “Hey! Be careful!” I lost my concentration and looked down at the crowd gathered below the Graze. Orga, Shino, and Takaki were looking up at Ride.

            “Yeah got it!” Ride called out. He’d gotten most of the sign painted over by then, pretty good for one kid with a roller.

            I looked back at Orga, his jacket was tied around his waist and his arms were crossed over his chest. There was so much pride on his face while he looked up at what Ride was doing. My chest tightened, it startled me so much that I slipped a little bit. Unfortunately that brought his attention to me.

            “Aurora, what are you doing?!”

            What? What was I doing?

            “Um, my job?” What was his problem?

            “You’ll fall, you don’t even have a security strap connected to anything.”

            “Orga It’s only nine meters, I’ll be fine.” Maybe I should have had a the strap on something.

            “Could you at least get secured to something?”

            Okay, don’t be mean don’ be mean. He only wants you to not die.

            “Yes, Dad.” Okay that wasn’t so bad. I could see his eye twitch from where I was, maybe I would just stay up here.

            “She’s fine Orga, look she put the strap around something.” Nadi called from the Barbatos. Oh bless you Nadi, You beautiful person.

            “But don’t you do that crap again. You know better.” I take that back. Well, no I don’t.

            “I know, I know.”

            Eventually the crowd trickled away to their jobs, leaving my mortification and me at peace. I pushed all of what happened out of my mind.

 

            The sun was beginning to set by the time Ride finished and I called it a night. The sky was a mix of light purple and deep red. Ride and I had moved all of the painting supplies inside. When We returned, we had a small crowd gathered, again. I spotted Orga and slowed down so Ride reached them ahead of me. He seemed to grow two inches under the praise he received.

            Orga didn’t look at me. Okay now I was getting mad, the least he could do was look furious or something. Wait, why would he be mad again? Because I did something that was only a little stupid? He’s done worse. He probably forgot all about it and I’m just being dumb. I should probably still not talk to him.

           Luckily Mika and the farm crew arrived home at nearly the same time I got to Orga. He didn’t move when I stepped into place beside him

            “Mr. Mikazuki!” Takaki shouted. The hatch of the truck opened up. It was a hybrid between an old mobile worker and an old truck that Nadi and I had thrown together a few years ago. The boys could drive it without having to be taught, even though most of them eventually learned how even without the AV system.

            “Look at this!” Takaki pointed up to Ride’s painting. It was a red version of the stylized lily we had printed on the back of our jackets.

            “What is it?” Biscuit asked. So he hadn’t seen it?

            “The insignia of Tekkadan.” Orga’s voice rumbled in his chest.

            “Boss asked me to design it.” His face glowed with pride.

            “It looks great. Is it supposed to be a fish?” Oh Shino. Ride’s face suddenly changed to horror. He proceeded to yell at Shino about how it was a flower.

           

            To Mika Orga asked: “Isn’t it good?”

            “Yes,” Mika didn’t seem very interested in it; then again it can be hard to tell with him.

            “Mika, We’re going to protect this.”

           

            I assumed Mika nodded. I chose that moment to make my escape. Or, I tried to make my escape. Orga’s longer legs let him catch up quite easily. We didn’t say anything for a while. Was I supposed to say something?

            Orga beat me to it, “Aurora, I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

            I stopped, “What? That’s it? No yelling or telling me how I’m irresponsible or something?”

            Orga stopped and turned around. He looked confused and a little uncomfortable, “Um, no.”

            “This is so anticlimactic.”

            “if I yelled at you, you would only close off. That’s not what I want. You did scare me when you slipped, I think that’s why I yelled.”

            I scared him? Him? Orga?

            “You knew I was up there?”

            “Of course I did. If you were trying to hide, you weren’t doing a good job of it.”

            “So my dreams of being a spy are crushed?”

            “Don’t quit your day job.”

            I grinned, and then I walked forward and wrapped my arms around him. “Thank you for not yelling at me.”

            He laughed and hugged me back. We stood there for a moment before I remembered the jackets. I wiggled out of the hug and grabbed his wrist.

            “I have to show you what Ride and I did!”


	7. Ends

            The next day was busy, in the mechanic bay we were working on putting thrusters on both of the Mobile Suits along with the coating of nano-laminate that would protect them from enemy fire. That stuff was not fun to wash out of your hair, especially when the water went cold.

            The boys loved the insignia on the jackets so much that they all decided they had to have it. Kudelia saved me from having to handle printing duty. She was so excited and eager to learn that it would have been evil to say no to her. I didn’t mind one bit, she and Ride ended up spending the whole day in the printing room. Even our accountant from the former First Army wanted one.

            Orga and Biscuit had had their own adventures that day. We needed a guide ship to get us to Earth because Gjallarhorn controlled the main shipping routes. Earth may be our closest neighbor but by no means did that make the journey easy. There were debris clouds and pirates to avoid in addition to the Gjallarhorn ships.

            Orga technically being our new president obligated him for the task. I was pretty sure Biscuit had volunteered for the advisor job. Ever since CGS had officially become Tekkadan the two had been tied up in meeting after meeting. Eugene had been pretty steamed after one of them. He’d shouted for a good hour about Orga giving severance pay to the First Army defectors.

            The guy had a reason to be angry, we weren’t exactly in the clear in terms of money now. But if Tekkadan was going to be successful we needed a good reputation, laying off a bunch of old employees without any pay at all would have dashed any hopes of such a reputation. Besides, not all of the First Army guys were that bad. A bunch of them had families that depended on their paychecks, kind of like how Biscuit’s family depended on his.

            It was one of those give and take things. It happened in our adventure stories all the time: You can kill the monster to save the princess or you can sacrifice the princess for the sake of the village. In this case, Orga chose the village. I wondered what he would do if the princess were a person and not just a bunch of numbers on a screen.

            “So how did the meeting with Orcus Go?” I asked Biscuit.

            We sat across the table from each other in the empty mess hall. It was relatively early for anyone to be awake. We both wore our jackets to keep away the early morning chill. I envied him for his scarf it looked warm. Mikazuki had passed through some time ago but he usually woke up before anyone else so he could get a workout in before the day started. One of the bad things about being early is that whoever’s turn it was to be on cooking duty was unlikely to have woken up.

            Biscuit had made us oatmeal, the quick kind. I didn’t mind so much, it was better than the mash we were given during back when we were under CGS. I absentmindedly twirled my spoon between my fingers. Biscuit rested his cheek on one hand and scooped oatmeal with the other.

            “It was alright. We have the documents signed. Orga didn’t like the man in charge at all.” He stifled a yawn.

            “What was wrong with him?” Orga was pretty spot-on with the character of a person.

            “He didn’t say exactly. But he did get that look on his face.”

            Oh I knew the look. It was not something I liked having directed at me. Over the years most of us had learned not to try and trick him. It usually didn’t end well for whoever tried.

            I nodded and looked out at the sky. It was a clear blue today, no clouds to block the sun. That was the day we were supposed to get launched up. I was picked to go because I was in charge of the Graze. If we wanted to sell it, it needed to be in good condition. Seeing as Nadi would have his hands full if Mika got into any fights with Barbatos, I was pretty much obligated to go.

            “He’s probably got a plan already.” He did have a tendency to be crazy prepared.

            Biscuit nodded. Yup, Orga had a plan and Biscuit knew it. We sat in silence for a while until we got up to put our dishes away.

            “Oh, did your Grandma say anything about the equipment needing repairs?” I liked to keep Miss Sakura’s farm equipment running smoothly; partly because it would be cheaper if I did it and mostly because I didn’t trust the mechanics in town to know how to fix anything. My father was the best mechanic in town, and everyone else knew it. When he got sick none of the other mechanic shops tried to help. Instead they were probably angry that he didn’t die faster. Money did that to people, made them nasty.

            “No, but she did say that the tractor has never worked so well in all of the years she had it.” I smiled at the praise.

 

            “EUGENE!” I shouted. Orga had said Eugene wasn’t going to take the pink paint lying down, why did he have to be right? Why did I always ignore the warning? All around my bed were cups filled with water, if I wanted to get to the bag I’d packed for the trip I would have to carefully make a path. Eugene was so gonna get it.

            “What? Are you afraid of a little water now?” The culprit walked around a row of bunks, his hands were stuffed in his pockets. His jacket was unbuttoned and the stupid little tie he liked to wear swayed with each step.

            I placed my hands on my hips and arched an eyebrow at him, “You do realize you’ve declared war, right?”

            He stopped in front of me and grinned, “Bring it.”

            We glared at each other for a moment more. He broke eye contact first; I counted it as a point for me.

            Luckily, Shino chose that moment to amble in. He was talking to one of the younger boys about something, probably women, when he noticed Eugene and me.

            “Hey guys,” he looked at the cups of water, “Did you get thirsty Ari?”

            “No, Eugene decided to try and build me a moat. It’s not going well though. He forgot the bridge.” I pointed to the cups. Shino laughed and said something about Eugene’s planning skills.

            Eugene made a rude face, I stuck my tongue out at him.

            “If I help you clean it up will you go on a date with me?” Shino asked me with the hopefulness of a small child.

            “Uh, I’ll consider it.” No way was that ever happening.

            “I’ll take it!” He then proceeded to knock over, yes, knock over, all of the cups.

            “Shino!” Eugene and I yelled.

            “What? The floor’s even cleaner now and you don’t need a bridge!”

            Eugene face palmed.

            “That’s not quite what I had in mind…” I trailed off.

 

            Takaki popped his head in the doorway, “Everyone, we’re getting ready to leave for the launch-port. What’s wrong?”

            Shino had gotten Eugene into a headlock. Eugene had one of Shino’s ears in his grip. I was watching with my small bag of clothes slung across my back.

            “Don’t worry about it.” I said. I pointedly ignored the brawl taking place on my bunk. I grabbed Takaki’s wrist and pulled him along after me. Poor thing looked so confused as I led him away.

            “Shouldn’t we-”

            I cut him off, “Nope, if they miss the truck then they can take one of the Mobile Workers to the spaceport.”

            “Isn’t that a little harsh?”

            “Not at all. They’ll be racing each other to the truck in a minute or two.” I sighed. For those two to get into one of their masculinity fights meant that things were on the way back to normal. Just in time for everything to get messed up again.

            “Did you get the younger boys all packed up?” I asked him. I had let go of his hand and we walked in step down to the garage.

            Takaki nodded, “Yeah, it was a little like herding cats.”

            I opened my mouth to reply when two bodies streaked past us. I had to grab Takaki’s shoulder to keep him from falling over in the resulting wind.

            “I know the feeling. You get used to it after a while.”

 

            The garage was more organized than I had thought. There were three trucks being loaded: two for the crew of the space ship and one for the people seeing us off. I had helped Nadi load the Mobile Workers and the Mobile Suits into the larger trucks. Even with Mikazuki’s help, between the mechs and necessary cargo, loading had taken most of the morning. He and Tamagi had gone with Nadi right after lunch to load everything onto the shuttle. I got to deal with the people side of things. Lucky me.

            Eugene and Shino were arguing about who had beaten who, they drew the attention of a few boys. Biscuit was half trying to keep the peace while the other half tried not to laugh. Takaki hurried away to help a few of the younger kids who were coming with us. They were twins who were probably going to be handfuls, maybe I could use them to get back at Eugene.

            Todo was leaning against one of the trucks. He scanned over the crowd, I noticed him pause on Biscuit then once more on Orga before continuing his survey.

            Interesting.

            His eyes stopped on me and I realized I was staring. He knew I wasn’t his biggest fan but I was pretty sure he didn’t harbor suspicions of me. I nodded once to him and moved on.

            I waded through the mass of boys running through the garage for the closest truck. There was a haphazard mountain already formed so I added my beaten up bag to the mess. From far away, the bags all looked the same. They were all made of the same dull green canvas material, meant to be practical rather than pretty. But when you got up close, you could see the individual differences: like Eugene’s bag having the ID number of the mechs he’s piloted written on the very front. Trust Eugene to try to show off even when he’s not around.

            A sly grin crept across my face. This was the perfect set up for revenge. I thought about what I had on hand and what I could do with it. The plan was just coming together when a certain person’s hand locked one of my shoulders in its vice-grip. And there went my brilliant plan. He put his free hand on the truck so that I couldn’t run away, and he leaned in.

            “I know you aren’t going to do something to Eugene’s bag. Especially when there are so many witnesses.” Orga whispered in my ear. He was using the deadly–serious voice, the one he knew scared the heck out of me. _Breathe, breathe and calm down_ , I scolded myself. I turned my head to look up at him over my shoulder and used my best “winning” smile.

            “Of course not! I was just moving it so that it wouldn’t fall when the truck leaves!” I put the bag back and piled mine on top of it, “See?”

            He raised an eyebrow, definitely did not buy it. Shoot. First the scaring him thing and now this, this was not shaping up to be my week. I shook off his hand and turned around to face him, he leaned on the truck instead of me.

            “How did the water thing go over?”

            I stared at him, the little rat. He knew Eugene was going to pull something and he didn’t tell me! My eyes narrowed, “Before you say anything incriminating I would suggest giving a good thought to whether you want to get into a prank war with me or leave it between Eugene and me.”

            “I couldn’t just leave him to deal with you alone. Friends have to stick together.”

            “What?! I’m one of your friends too!” I crossed my arms and looked up expectantly at him. He wore his usual work outfit, except now the Tekadan insignia was emblazoned on his back rather than CGS. Come to think of it, he did have a tendency to take responsibility for everything.

            “Let me rephrase that: _guys_ have to stick together. Especially when you’re around.”

            “Not fair! It’s not like there’s an abundance of girls here.” I said while I crossed my arms.

            “Don’t worry, we have Atra now so you can add one to your team!” “Yeah maybe it won’t smell so bad around here now that there’ll be another person who showers more than once a month.” I pinched my nose and mimed waving a stinky smell away.

I glanced around the garage; most of those around us had stopped paying attention a while ago. Me teasing the guys was nothing new, even though it was entertaining. Todo, however, looked very intrigued by our conversation.

            Orga was about to reply to my shower comment with what I could only assume was a witty jab befitting of a teenage boy when something in his face shifted. He stopped being the Orga I was used to and became Orga: the boss of Tekkadan.

            _Todo_? He mouthed.

            I smiled in response. Couldn’t risk a hidden lip-reading ability, even if it was just Todo we were talking about.

            “Taken care of. Can the Graze be used?”

            Did he know exactly to whom he was talking? Of course the darn Graze could be used. It even had thrusters for space; I had the scorched gloves to prove it.

            “Is that even a question?”

            Orga grinned. Why did he have to do that? It made my stomach feel weird.

            “Right, what was I thinking,” He removed the hand that had kept him propped up against the truck, “Just keep an eye out, I’ve got a feeling the trip will be more exciting than we think.”

            Couldn’t anything here be calm? Hopefully everything would quiet down after this mission was over. Who was I trying to kid? Nothing would ever be boring around these guys. I sighed and made my way around the truck. With Akihiro up in space with our ship I was next in line for driving duty.

            My passengers spoke in excited whispers that quickly gave way to a dull roar of predictions for the trip. Atra, who had elected to ride with me rather than with Shino or Eugene, and I shared a smile while we listened. My personal favorite was that Kudelia would become queen of Mars and we would all live in castles with candy and delicious food in every room.

            How different this week had turned out to be.

            If all had gone according to plan, CGS would still be operating but there would have been a significantly weakened Third Army. Orga, Eugene, Biscuit, and Mika had been chosen to go, if they’d been killed we would have lost our main leaders. The Third would have been left severely weakened and significantly easier to manipulate.

            “Are you okay, Ari?” Atra asked. I must have been scowling pretty hard for her to say something.

            “Yeah, just thinking about stuff.” I smiled at her.

            We were quiet for a moment before she changed the topic, “It’s really exciting to be going with you all. Have you gotten to go on many missions?”

            “Actually this’ll be my first one. I’m stuck at the base while the boys get to have all the fun.” I replied, I figured she didn’t have to know about all of the times they had come back beaten and tired.

            “Oh, I was hoping you could tell me what space is like. I guess we’ll just find out together!” She said with a smile. It was almost enough to make me forget about my bad feeling. We sat in comfortable silence while the boys chattered on.

            The trip was as uneventful as it could have been, considering I was driving a bunch of excited kids around. I could proudly say that there were only two arguments and one punch thrown the entire way.

            There was a momentary lull in the chatter when we arrived at the port. After they took in the sight of the port building and launch ramp, the kids only got even more excited. I pulled the truck into place beside Eugene and Shino, Orga and Biscuit were already outside and talking to the accountant we had managed to keep on from CGS. He was tall and thin with glasses, his last name was Culastor and I was pretty sure his first name began with a “D”. He glanced nervously at the kids poking their heads out of the windows of the trucks. Apparently he was going to be sticking around even longer because we needed an adult at the base to make sure things didn’t get too out of hand.

            Though everyone was excited, they fell in line and helped load luggage into carts for transfer to our shuttle. An outsider would probably be confused if they had seen the boys switch from rambunctious kids to trained workers in under a second. Sometimes I even forgot how young some of the boys I worked with were. No matter what happened to them, they would never truly be able to be children.

           

           We said our final farewells and goodbyes and parted with our base crew. A couple older boys were staying behind as well. They worked under me with the Mobile Workers, they were pretty good mechanics but I needed them at the base. They didn’t have the confidence level for the mission and not having Nadi or me to turn to would help them build it up.

            They helped Culastor herd the younger ones into the port building so they could watch the shuttle take off. The part of the building facing the launch way was covered in windows, the kids would have a pretty good show.

           

            The shuttle we were taking was meant for low orbit trips, mainly to transfer passengers and goods to ships waiting just outside of Mar’s atmosphere. Most of it was basically big cargo bay with the actual passenger section taking up a tiny portion of the shuttle-space.

            I tried to stay calm while I walked up the rickety stairs to the hatch. It loomed ahead of me, dark and hungry. Biscuit disappeared into the gloom first, I followed and hoped no one saw me hesitate for a moment.

            The inside of the shuttle was quite large, there were two rows of single person seats with windows. I passed Biscuit and chose a seat toward the front. I dried my palms on my pants and took a few slow breaths to slow down my rapid heartbeat. That wasn’t working so I kneeled on me seat to see what everyone else was doing, maybe if I ignored it my heart would slow down. Kudelia and her maid took the seats in the very back. I noticed Todo cast a furtive glance their way before sauntering to the seat in front of me.

            Orga watched him the whole way.

            He caught my gaze: _watch him_.

            I nodded back and turned around just as the pilots asked us to fasten our seat belts for launch.


	8. Not

The shuttle rattled like a tin can while its engine warmed up. My stomach was roiling from the violent shaking, I breathed through my nose to try and keep down whatever I ate for lunch. Everyone else seemed to be fine. They chattered on and on about the mission and getting to see the stars from space. I wondered if the boys in the back of the shuttle were as excited. Probably, it didn’t take much to get them going.  
If Todo tried to hurt any of them he would have Hell to pay.  
I glared at the seat in front of me, as if I could somehow will him not to do something stupid and try to double-cross us. A sudden lurch from the shuttle made my stomach flip, when would this be over?  
The pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom, “Sorry about that folks, just the ground transportation moving us into place. We’ll begin launch sequence in one minute.”  
Oh thank goodness this was going to be over soon. I glanced out the window at the cleared runway. Everyone would have been ordered away from the intense heat of the thrusters. I thought about the balance differences between Mobile fuel and Shuttle fuel, they were actually pretty similar. Shuttle fuel was a little less noxious though.  
Suddenly we shot forward, up the runway that I knew curved into the sky. There must have been inertial dampeners somewhere in the guts of the shuttle because breaking out of Mar’s gravity felt less like a mobile worker sitting on me and more like a dozen sandbags being piled on my lap.  
The ground dropped away sickeningly fast from my window. Soon the apace port looked like a toy on the vast Martian landscape, if I angled my head just right I thought I saw a patch of green where grandma Sakura’s farm should have been.  
In minutes the weight of the sandbags fell to zero. I could see the entirety of the planet upon which I’d been born and I felt, for lack of a better word, small. Everything that’d ever mattered to me had happened on that rock, in one small city. If Gjallarhorn had succeeded in wiping us out that day, the world would have kept turning.  
“Hey, isn’t that Orcus’ ship?” Takaki’s question turned my stomach to ice. This was much too early for them to show up. I heard Todo chuckle to himself in front of me. The stupid pig.  
“What’s that!?” The alarm in Takaki’s voice made me even angrier. I was standing, hands gripped on the head rest of my seat to keep myself from wringing Todo’s neck. I glanced at Orga: he was up as well. Biscuit bolted across the aisle for a better look at what was happening.  
“Those are Mobile Suits from Gjallarhorn!” Biscuit said.  
“Wait, there’s something behind them too!” Eugene choked out.  
“What?” Disbelief quieted Biscuit’s voice a bit.  
That’s when Todo moved, “What? What’s going on?!”  
He stood from his seat and stumbled into the aisle, back pressed against the door separating us from the pilots. I glanced over at Orga for orders but he was quiet, I could see the gears turning in his head.  
“Isn’t that a Gjallarhorn ship?” Shino’s voice was hard with anger.  
“Todo, explain yourself!” Eugene bristled.  
“I don’t know anything! There was nothing in the plan about Gjallarhorn!” He really looked like a cornered animal now. He tore the door open, in his haste he forgot about the decreased gravity and tripped for a minute before launching into the cockpit. Shino was up, his usual carefree demeanor was gone. He was already storming down the aisle when a voice came over the intercom.  
“Tell him that we are grateful for his cooperation”  
Todo was so dead. Even in the low gravity Shino managed to look intimidating. He disappeared into the cockpit too.  
“You sold us out?” was all I heard over the sound of Todo’s groveling. Then a smack and he was silent. You never wanted to be on the receiving end of a punch from Shino.  
Orga made it to the cockpit as well, “Forget about docking, try to shake them off!”  
The shuttle broke off from its course and sped away from the enemy Suits. Not that it would do much in the long run, our little thrusters were no match for the output from an Ahab Reactor.  
Eugene joined Shino in wrestling Todo into a seated position outside of the cockpit. Orga moved to stand beside my seat. His hand covered my own on the headrest. I told myself that is was only for him to keep his balance; there was absolutely nothing else to it no matter what the funny feeling told me.  
Todo snapped awake, he had a nice shiner where Shino had punched him, “I’ll never forgive you guys! You can’t do this to me! We’ll all be killed.” Eugene growled something back at him. The shuttle jolted, but this time it had nothing to do with ground transportation. I glanced back at the others, Atra and Kudelia looked totally out of their depths.  
“Are we surrounded?” Biscuit asked.  
“Communication from enemy Mobile Suit,” everyone quieted, “He’s asking for the immediate release of Kudelia Aine Burnstein to the custody of Gjallarhorn!” One of the pilots called out.  
“Hand her over! Hand her over!” Todo shouted frantically.  
“How dare you!” Eugene growled again.  
“How else can we save ourselves?” Todo yelled over him.  
“What can we do, Orga?” Shino asked. Everyone looked to Orga but he stood silent; what was he waiting on?  
“Please, you must hand me over” Kudelia pleaded. She was way too quick to hand her life over for us. It bothered me a bit.  
Orga interrupted her before she could continue arguing, “I can’t do that. It’d make us dishonorable.”  
I was so shocked I nearly laughed; trust Orga to have honor on the mind at a time like this. Todo began to scream insults at Orga but Shino knocked him out again.  
Orga turned around and shouted, “Biscuit!”  
“Got it!” Biscuit had moved to the back of the shuttle and stood before one of the intercom systems, “Mikazuki, we’re moving forward.”  
There was a collective “What?” through the cabin. Orga and Biscuit had apparently not told anyone else about the plan. I only knew a bit but none of the particulars.  
The shuttle shook, either we had been stuck again or it the cargo doors were opening. I was hoping it was the latter. Moments passed before a shockwave rocked the ship. I glanced out the window and saw bits of armor floating by. Mika had made his entrance.  
One of the pilots lost his nerve when the shockwave hit. He was pale as a sheet when he emerged from the cockpit saying over and over: “We’re gonna die.”  
Shino swore and jumped away to take over the man’s abandoned console leaving Eugene to deal with a passed out Todo. Everyone from the old CGS snapped into work-mode, it was like the flick of a switch. I don’t think Atra had ever seen us like that until that point.  
Orga followed Shino into the cockpit, I could hear him barking out instructions while I strapped the woozy pilot into one of the seats. The cold pit where my stomach used to be helped me focus.  
“We’re gonna die.” He told me again. His pulse was weak and fast, skin pale and clammy: Shock.  
“Hush. We won’t die, just trust me okay?” I said in my best calming voice. I unfastened the cufflinks on his pilot suit but there wasn’t much else I could do.  
“I need you to do something for me, okay?” I waited until his eyes cleared a bit and he nodded before continuing, “I need you to count to three and take deep, slow breaths. Can you do that for me?”  
He nodded and started with a deep breath. I left him to it.  
From the window I saw two more mobile suits gaining on us. I had to regain my balance when the shuttle banked a little too fast for me. The docking station was close beneath the belly of the spacecraft; I could see sparks fly from where the bullets from the enemy Suits struck it. Another one locked into position to fire at use once more. I couldn’t tell the type of gun it was using but I bet it was similar to what our Graze had.  
Suddenly it was blown off balance by something, Mika. I craned my neck to see but he was out of my range. They turned to follow him, leaving us relatively clear. Until Orcus’ ship started firing at us. Nothing hit the shuttle but the shockwaves from the exploding ammunition sent the little craft tumbling. If we took even a glancing hit the shuttle would rip apart. We weren’t equipped with anything for defense let alone offense.  
“Look!” Takaki called out. He was pointing at something off our starboard side.  
“What is it?” I asked.  
“A medium class assault ship.” Takaki replied, “Is it on our side?”  
“Yeah” Biscuit sounded more than a little relieved.  
So that was where Akihiro was. I recalled that he was away getting the ship prepared and officially registered under Tekkadan but I didn’t know he was our cavalry. The Isaribi pulled alongside the shuttle, completely dwarfing it. It had a red and white paint job that needed a serious recoating. 

We wasted no time in boarding the ship. The shuttle pilots were eager to leave the area so the transfer of goods had begun almost instantaneously. All of the boys not involved with the bridge had moved to help out. I found Nadi in the Mech Hangar. He stood by with a checklist while the boys moved out our machines. Yamagi was leading the boys working the transfer.  
“How’d you like the ride?” I asked Nadi. The reduced gravity allowed me to jump to him from the entryway without any trouble. Man, this was going to be fun if we make it out of the scrap in one piece.  
“Let’s not do anything like that again.” He replied. I glanced at the list, everything but the Barbatos was accounted for. I had a feeling the Graze would be earning its keep real soon. There was a rack of headsets on the wall, I snagged one and let it hang around my neck.  
“Nadi, channel three if you need me.” That was the maintenance channel back on the base, it would work for here too. Nadi and Yamagi had everything under control so I hurried to the bridge. 

On the way I met up with Shino. His face was scrunched in irritation while he manhandled a protesting Todo into an empty storage closet.  
“Enough!” Shino shouted at the whining man, I winced a little at the smack of fist meeting face. That man was going to have brain damage if Shino didn’t hold back a little more.  
“Everything okay?” I called. Shino grabbed my outstretched hand and pulled me to a stop.  
“Yeah just dealing with the trash.” He looked angry enough to spit. Needed a distraction.  
“Is there an update on Mika?”  
We started back toward the bridge; well, more like I was dragged along back to the bridge. My hand was still buried in his grip.  
“No when I left.” The death grip on my wrist relaxed somewhat.  
We made it just as Biscuit called out that Mika was still trading fire with the enemy.  
“Well, that answers that question.” I mumbled to no one in particular. I took in the set up while I rubbed circulation back into my hand. The bridge was dominated by screens showing the view from around the ship, below them sat control stations manned by Eugene, Biscuit, Akihiro, and two of the former Debris soldiers: Dante and Chad. Shino took up a position behind the captain chair, ready for orders. Atra and Kudelia were behind Biscuit watching Mikazuki from the monitor. Orga was in the captain seat.  
“Ari, get Yamagi to ready the Graze.” He said without turning from the screen. I could see the flash of ammunition exchange from the fight.  
“On it,” then into the headset I repeated his message. Biscuit protested at using merchandise but like Orga said: it would be no use if we were all dead.  
“Akihiro, can I ask you to pilot it?” Orga asked. There was no response but I saw Akihiro move up from his position. 

I filled him in on the Graze as well as I could on the way back down to the garage. He took it all in and only asked a few questions.  
“Does it have the AV system?”  
I shook my head, “No, it’s a manual cockpit. That type of graze is realtively simple though. It’s the standard base model.” I thought for a minute and then added, “Even I could make it move.”  
We parted when he changed into the space suit. I swung into to the main bay to see the Graze standing-by for deployment. Yamagi had even thought to have the Barbatos’ mace at the ready. That boy needed a raise.  
“Everyone out of the area of the airlock.” I said into the comm system. The guys who had stayed in the garage moved to the viewing platform where Nadi and Yamagi stood. They had an ele-pad with the camera view of Mikazuki playing. Akihiro floated past me into the cockpit.  
I nodded at him. “Airlock ready and waiting.”  
He nodded back before being buried beneath the Graze’s armor.  
It took him a minute but he figured out the controls and moved the Graze out. Into the headset I reported the Graze deployed. I kicked off to move to where Nadi and Yamagi stood with the group of boys. Ride was among them and a few of the older ones, they made space for me to watch.  
I twisted over the safety rail and moved in just in time to see one of the enemy brought down by the mace. I pushed away the guilt at their death; it could wait. One of the Suits bull-rushed Mika with his axed raised. Mika spun out of the way and continued to dodge the other two enemy Suits that followed. Akihiro shot a pulse and brought one of them down, there was no damage to the cockpit that I could see. The system must have briefly overloaded.  
The first Suit, the hotheaded one, continued to fire recklessly at Mika. He slashed and shot but nothing he could do even came close to catching the Barbatos. Mika slashed the arm of the enemy Graze, leaving it open for a finishing blow. I was more than a little relieved when Mika was distracted by another Graze, which he crushed easily with the mace.  
Another Mobile Suit, not a Graze like the others, appeared and drew Mika away from the downed Suits.  
“Nadi what is that?” I asked without taking my eyes from the screen.  
“Some sort of Schwalbe Graze. One they keep for the higher-ups.” He muttered. It was very different. The body was a humanoid shape with a purple paint coat and a lance on its right arm and what looked like a grappling claw on the left arm. Mika kicked the falled graze away, freeing his mace just in time to block the Scwalbe’s charge.  
Whereas Mika’s movements were fluid with minimal effort behind them; the Scwalbe looked like the machine was doing most of the work. There was definitely skill behind each lunge but there was no flow to them. Maybe the AV system had something to do with it.  
I didn’t see the second Schwalbe until it fired a blast at Mika. This one managed to land a hit on the Barbatos’ thrusters. The camera lost range and the feed blinked out just as the two suits closed on Mika.  
“What? Bring it back!” Ride shouted. The ship lurched suddenly, throwing us all off balance. One of the older bunch caught me before I could smack my head on the railing.  
“Thanks, Noah.” He wasn’t one of the mechanic crew, I was pretty sure he worked with Shino. He may have helped out once or twice with medical stuff. Nice guy.  
“Oh, um no problem Aurora.”  
I was distracted by Chad’s voice on the headset, “Ari! Get one of the Mobile Workers ready.”  
“Nadi we need a Worker to be ready.”  
“What? But we’re not close to anythi¬¬ oh.” Nadi’s sudden pause drew my attention back to the screen. Dante had already linked a diagram of what they were planning to do, it played out on the ele-pad. We were going to use the mining asteroid to swing completely around and face Orcus’ ship. They needed one of the Mobile Workers to release the tether.  
Nadi sent a few guys to get one of the Workers ready.  
“I’ll never understand how you kids come up with this crazy stuff.” Nadi sighed. I smiled back at him. It was definitely a crazy plan; we may not be able to get the pilot of the Worker back before Gjallarhorn discovers them. Whoever piloted the Worker would essentially be an open target.  
To be honest, I wasn’t surprised when it was Eugene who showed up in the pilot suit.  
“So, you’re our saving grace?” I leaned back on the railing.  
“Can’t let Orga take all the spotlight.” He grumbled. The mobile worker moved into place and the boy driving it jumped out. He waved the go ahead for Eugene.  
Eugene moved to jump down but I grabbed his wrist before he could, “You’d better come back.”  
He smiled at me, “don’t go getting all sappy on my now, Ari.” Then he was gone.  
“Eugene is ready.” I said into the headset.  
“All crew move to secure locations, this ride may get a little rocky.” Chad’s voice rang out over the comm-system. We huddled around the ele-pad: it was showing the diagram updated for Eugene’s location. He was waiting on the outside of the ship just by the tethers on its nose.  
“Anchor firing!”  
The dot that represented Eugene moved along the cable line toward the asteroid. When the Isaribi entered the turning radius we were al swung against the railing. Ride held onto the ele-pad like his lifeline. The dot reached the asteroid.  
On the screen the symbol for the ship was at the end of its turn and going into the red zone. The estimated projector had us ramming into the side of the asteroid, that was not good for everyone to see.  
“We’re gonna hit it!” someone yelled.  
“Eugene won’t let us down!” I shouted back.  
“I’m too old for this kind of excitement.” Nadi yelled above all of us.  
Then, the screen went green and showed the ship continuing on toward the enemy assault ship. There was a collective sigh of relief. We picked ourselves off of the rail, there would be some good bruises tomorrow from this craziness.  
Nadi flicked the camera back to what the bridge was seeing. The Isaribi broadsided the enemy ship. We even managed to scrape a gun or two from her side, though I cringed at the damage to our own ship.  
“Chad can you make sure Akihiro knows Eugene’s location? I don’t think Mika’ll be able to grab him with those Suits on his tail.” I asked.  
His reply crackled over the headset, “Will do.”

It took Akihiro fifteen minutes to make it back into the hangar. The Graze looked pretty good after its first battle under Tekkadan I would have to ask Akihiro how it ran. Hopefully it wouldn’t need as much maintenance as the Barbatos. The twin Ahab Reactors probably needed to be recalibrated. I swear you could sneeze at those things and they would be screwed up.  
Akihiro had managed to grab Eugene’s Mobile Worker but there was no response from inside. The mech itself was pretty banged up; it must have struck the asteroid pretty hard. There were no fuel leaks that I could smell even though there was no power to any part of the body. As long as the seal around the cockpit held up Eugene would be fine. We could get him out through the manual release. Akihiro had set the mangled machine on one of the repair lifts before shutting the Graze down.  
I chewed my thumbnail and tried not to think about Eugene. Death was routine, there were always kids not coming back from the missions. It was different actually being out here with everyone. The unease was so thick you could’ve cut it with a knife.  
“Ari! Any news on Eugene?” I jumped when Orga stopped beside me, the rest of the bridge team.  
Nadi answered before I could, “I just sent Yamagi after the manual override code.”  
“The seal is probably still in place since even Shino Couldn’t open it.” Shino had tried forcing the hatch open earlier, now he sat on top of the Worker.  
Orga nodded but didn’t say anything back. His brows were furrowed and his lips were pressed together in a hard line. For some reason it really bothered me that he was upset and I wanted to do something about it. I leaned into him a bit all the while trying to ignore the funny feeling it gave me. His shoulders loosened, if only a little. I counted it as a win.  
We all held our breath when Yamagi returned with the Worker’s code. It took both Shino and Noah to work the hatch open. There was a hiss when the seal broke. Relief at the sound swept through the small crowd. He was likely okay.  
Eugene looked like he was taking a nap. Apparently being locked in a powerless machine was boring to him. Orga jumped up to help him out of the ruined mech.  
“You made me pretty nervous.” He said.  
“It’s you who made that awful plan” Eugene sniped back. Yeah, he was fine. He took Orga’s hand and was hauled up and out of his seat.  
“I expect you to do the same thing next time.”  
“What?!” Eugene’s exclamation caused an chorus of laughter to fill the hangar.  
“Shino, what’d you do with Todo?” I asked. I’d nearly forgotten about the canned rat. I didn’t want him on the ship any longer than he needed to be.  
“Hmm? Oh don’t worry about him. Kudelia helped me make a little send off for him.” He grinned. Of course, being Shino, he proceeded to mime the binding of Todo for his gathered audience. He even managed to raise his voice to an absurd level for Kudelia’s bit. I listened for a while and I couldn’t help but wonder what Gjallarhorn would do when they found him.


	9. With

            The hangar was empty but for the chorus of the maintenance crews. The hum of drill and spit of welders joined with the clank of tool against metal to provide our own little style of music. Nadi’s orders rang out ever now and then to correct or redirect; Yamagi and I supplemented those orders with our own.

            I had set Noah on Eugene’s downed mobile worker. They had fixed the power a few hours before and now were working on making the poor mech look less like something that belonged in a junkyard. Actually, most of our stuff did belong in a junkyard only Nadi’s hands and the cheapness CGS’s former president kept our mechs out of such a place.

            We learned fast how to recycle parts from machine to machine. There was never money for new mechs in the Third Army, our scavenger crews picked up most of our spare parts from old battlefields. Our latest run-in with Gjallarhorn gave us a few nice trophies.

            The Graze had very little damage, definitely nothing that warranted part replacement. Barbatos, however, was a different matter. The poor machine was partially naked because of some maneuver Mika had done; but that’s what our scavenged parts were for.

            The hours since Eugene’s extraction had been spent ripping out damaged parts and replacing them with new ones. Thrusters and panels were strapped to the walls of the hangar for inspection of the nano laminate armor coating. It had been a pain in the butt to work with back on Mars and I was hoping to avoid having to reapply it.

            “Gramps, does the outer coating for the Suits work like the stuff we put on the workers?” Takaki asked from somewhere behind me. I was elbow deep in the Graze’s circuits and didn’t bother to look.

            “Are you dumb? The stuff we use for the Suits is in a completely different league.” Nadi replied irritably, he needed a coffee, food, or both before he bit someone’s head off for real. Though he did have a point. The nano-armor we put on the Suits had multiple layers that reduced the damage taken in order to protect the metal, and the pilot beneath. The energy of the low would be absorbed and released when the armor chipped away, thus decreasing it to a more manageable force.

            Unfortunately, this meant that some areas of the armor were more worn than others. The Graze had a lot of wear on the arms and shoulders, matching Akihiro’s fighting style. His big body could take a lot of hits before going down which meant he dodged less and focused on ripping through defenses. Mika was smaller and could out maneuver his attacker; he dodged more so the coatings on his mech were more intact until you looked at the thrusters.

            I knew the AV system allows the boys to link up with the machines and move them like their own bodies. The reason why the thrusters were so beaten up was simple: human bodies don’t have them. Mika had never fought in space and wasn’t accustomed to the thruster pack we installed for space movement.

            I sealed the wires back up and clipped them into place, one more thing to cross off of the list. The E-pad in my pocket lit up at my touch and I flicked through the pages of electrical outputs and mechanical data on the Graze and then on the Barbatos. The Graze was nearly complete; I shot off more directions to my teams. Half of them were to peel off and work on the Barbatos and the others would remain.

            I shoved the pad back into one of my cargo pockets and kicked off toward Nadi. He had big circles under his eyes that I was sure mirrored my own. When was the last time either of us had slept, or eaten for that matter? Probably not since the launch the previous day.

           My traitorous stomach complained loudly not a second after I touched down.

            “I sent you the updates on the Graze, it’s pretty much done.” No matter how hard I tried there was no way to keep a straight face.

            Nadi grinned at the strange noise, “Good now get out of my hangar.”

            “What?” My smile faded in a second.

            “Now don’t you give me that mom face. I’m not one of those kids.” He sucked in air and I knew I was in for a lecture, “You’re tired, that rewiring took you five minutes longer than usual, your hands are trembling because you haven’t eaten or drank in eighteen hours, I can’t have that on my crews.”

            He was not playing _that_ card, he knew better, “I’ve gotten just as much rest as everyone else here,” Thank god I resisted the urge to stamp my foot. Looking like a petulant child would do nothing for my standing among the boys. I was a leader in CGS because I was strong; I kept pushing forward and didn’t take the breaks they did. I couldn’t afford to.

            “No you haven’t, everyone here has taken a break except you. I can’t have my best mechanic breaking down.” He clapped me on the shoulder and I almost missed how well he played me. Maybe I could use a nap, then again a shower sounded pretty good too.

            “Fine,” I huffed. I wish I could say I my irritation was false but I would rather have kept working. Machines were easy; if they stopped working they could be fixed. Creaks, dents, shattered armor, it could all be wiped away; life was different. I didn’t have to worry about Gjallarhorn when I had wrenches and soldering tools in my hands.

            I guess Nadi was right though: I was slower than usual, too slow for Suit work. Especially when the darn things needed to be ready yesterday just in case someone decided to finish what Gjallarhorn started.

            Boys scurried up and down the halls with boxes or tools, nearly all of them stopped for a moment to greet me. The excitement over outrunning the top military organization in the galaxy put a little more bounce in their steps. I wondered how long until it would fade.

            There was always that period after a really good mission when everyone would be in high spirits. The sad part was watching the kids come down from that high, knowing there was still work to be done and that the next win would be far off. Eventually the wins stop making them feel so great and they just look complete the next mission. Maybe things would be different now that we were Tekkadan instead of CGS.

            I nodded to the next group of boys that passed before ducking into my room. On a ship like this having your own room was a luxury, one I greatly appreciated. It was a small space but I didn’t mind because it was mine. There was a basic desk with a monitor, a screen that was supposed to represent a window, and a small bed tucked in a corner. The bed was all I really wanted.

            I pulled off my jacket and threw it onto the desk; there was enough gravity that it actually landed instead of floating around. I didn’t bother with my suit; I’d have to put it back on soon enough.

            I collapsed onto the thin comforter; even compared to the bunks at the base the bed was soft as a pile of feathers. Blue fabric muffled my sigh. Lightweight and cheap, the comforter was just the thing a cheapskate like Maruba would choose for sleeping quarters. Not that I minded, anything was better than the thin blankets and canvas bunks. Maybe Orga would let us buy actual beds for the base when we got back.

            It was a pleasant thought and I almost drifted off completely while thinking about it, unfortunately one of my crewmates decided they really needed to talk to me right then.

            An annoying buzz made me haul my tired self off of the bed and toward the door. There was a little screen on the right of the frame with a video feed. Biscuit’s face took up the center screen, he apologetically held up a lunchbox.

            “Only letting you in ‘cause you have food.” I growled and jammed a finger onto the OPEN icon. The door slid open without a sound.

            “Sorry, Yamagi said you got sent to your room.” He grinned and handed the box to me. I noticed he had one to.

            “Only Nadi would get mad at me for working too much.”

            “Only you would get in trouble for working too much.” We both grinned sheepishly. I stepped across the room and sat on the bed, he dragged the chair over from the desk.

            “So, why do I get delivery service?” I cracked the box open and the smell of Atra’s cooking took over the room. Vegetables with rice and some sort of red sauce, she even remembered to skip the imitation meat for me. There was even a spoon to go with it. While I tucked in Biscuit’s box remained closed.

            Something was up.

            “It’s Orga,” He began.

            “When is it not?” I interrupted with a grin. No matter how much I liked the guy, Orga did have a habit of causing headaches.

            Biscuit smiled back before continuing, “I just saw him and I really think he’s making a bad decision about what Tekkadan is going to do.”

            “You mean with the transportation mission?”

            “Yes!” He exclaimed, almost tossing the box of delicious food across the room in the process.

            “His plans usually work out in the end, especially when you’re around.” I pointed my spoon at him. He fiddled with the box until it popped open. We ate in silence after that.

            My thoughts drifted to the Suits and whether we could add a gun or two to the Barbatos’s basic frame. Mika had a habit of tossing his weapons aside, which was fine for ground fighting but not so much for space fighting. Those guns would keep him from being a sitting target if he lost all of the Suit’s weapons.    

            “Do you know the reason why he’s always so reckless?” Biscuit’s question broke me out of my thoughts. He cradled his head in his hands like he was having a headache. The lunchbox was forgotten on the desk, I tossed my own next to it.

            “I’ve always thought it was because he’s a guy and you’re all dumb.” I said cheekily. Usually that would have gotten a rise out of him but no luck today.

            He gave a weak laugh and continued, “He does it because of Mika.”

            “Explain?”

            “It’s because he thinks that Mika will think he’s weak if he doesn’t keep doing crazy things like playing chicken with a spaceship.”

            I sighed and then put my hand on his shoulder. In a grave voice I said, “You see, I was right: it’s because he’s a guy and you’re all dumb.”

            His laugh was a little more convincing that time but he still had a worried look about him. It was the shoulders most of all. People can use facial expressions to hide what they feel but they often forget that the rest of their body is usually more truthful. Biscuit’s shoulders were sloping, the way a defeated man would hold himself. Whatever Orga had said to him, Biscuit wasn’t buying it.

            Maybe trying a different strategy would work better. I thought back to when we were younger and the adults and Maruba ran CGS. Even then Orga was doing crazy stunts, usually to protect others or to finish a mission.     

            “Do you remember the time when we were little and some of the First Army decided to pick on you guys?”

            “Yeah, they made us run laps in the middle of the hottest day of the year and then they knocked us down if we weren’t running fast enough.”

            “How did you guys get out of it?” Of course I knew how they got out of it. Even I had my rations cut for a week. I didn’t mind much, girls have a slower metabolism and I’d had a bad habit of hording food back then.  

            A grin crept across his face, “Orga bet that he could run a lap around the base faster than any of the adults. If he did win then we wouldn’t have to run. He ended up getting a beating for winning and then we all got our rations cut.”

            We laughed and reminisced a bit more about some of the dumb things we all used to do. Putting grease in shampoo dispensers, snatching food from the First Army stocks, sneaking books into the base. They were considered “wastes of paper” and every time one of the books was found, it was burned or torn up in front of us. After a few tragedies Nadi started to help us hide them or said they were his if anyone got suspicious.

            Biscuit left after a while and I eventually lost my battle against my eyelids soon after. My nap was dreamless and ended too soon. I glanced at a clock and only half an hour had passed since Biscuit’s departure. Curiosity kept my eyes open this time and after pausing to stretch, I left to look for him.

            I didn’t have to search long. I found him staring at one of the window-screens. This one was programmed to show the port side of the ship. Apparently the idea of being encased in a metal tube, hurtling through a vacuum at speeds greater than that of sound was scary for some people and windows helped. Then again, windows on a spacecraft were also a scary thought so monitors that replicated windows were put in place instead.

            He looked lost in thought, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, one foot back on the railing. The weird feeling in my chest was more pleasant this time and I didn’t mind it so much.

            “Hey,” I said, leaning back on the railing to his right.

            “Oh hey,” He replied, and then with a smirk said, “I heard you got sent to time-out. Did you make a break for it?”

            I wacked his arm, “Was not time-out! It was a mandatory break.”

            It was beginning to irritate me that people likened my forced break to childhood punishment.

            “Whatever you say, Tantas.”

            “Watch it Itsuka, or I’ll quit. I’m sure there’s some other company that would like a mechanic with Mobile Suit experience.” I think he may have believed me for a hot second, until he saw my grin of course.

            “So, why is one of my top mechanics up here?”

            “I saw Biscuit a little while ago, he seemed a little concerned with what you have planned,” I crossed my arms, “So, what exactly is Tekkadan doing?”

            In order to get to Earth we needed an escort that knew the safest route, ours decided to try and kill us for Gjallarhorn, failed at that, and now we were in a bind. We needed to get Kudelia to Earth but none of us had ever been there, nor did any of us know a travel route that wasn’t under Gjallarhorn control. Space was full of debris and pockets of asteroids that could put a delay, or even a halt, on our first mission. Not exactly a position any of us wanted to be in.

            The grin faded and Orga put on his Business Face, at least that’s what I called it. “We’re going to the Jupiter area to make a deal with the boss of Teiwaz.”

            I had to pause for a moment and process that statement. From what I had overheard, Teiwaz was essentially a mafia that had a ton of influence in the Mars area and had a base out by Jupiter. They had their fingers in a couple of different areas such as agriculture and transport. You did not want to mess with them unless you had clout or a good proposal. I was pretty sure we lacked the former and I was uncertain about the latter.

            “So we’re throwing in with the space mafia? That’s your best plan?” I turned to face him, one brow arched. He moved away from the back rail to lean over the front, the one closest to the screen.

            “Hey, that was a god skeptical face and you just ignored it.” I followed him to the rail.

            “Sorry,” he said to his hands, “Honestly I’ve thought and thought and this is the only option we have. We can’t subcontract because we need our name out there. We need a big deal job so that other jobs come in.”

            I took a moment and really looked at him, there were creases and frown lines on his face that hadn’t been there a week ago. Orga had always supported and defended all of us; he needed someone to do that for him. He needed someone to whom he had nothing to prove.

            “Okay.” I pushed off of the railing and walked in the direction of the mess hall.

            “Okay? What does that mean?” He sounded nervous. I glanced back at him and that mask was gone again and Orga was, well, himself. Something in me squeezed, and I dug my nails into my hands to focus.

            “It means that I need coffee and I’ll follow you down this path you’ve chosen.”

            There was only one kind of coffee we you could get on a ship: Instant. On Earth you could get the real stuff, the kind made from roasted beans that you had to pour water over. When we got there that was the first thing I would try. Unfortunately that was still a few months off and I was stuck with the powdered stuff. I piled an extra spoonful into the mug before adding the water. Hopefully it would help chase the sleep away for another few hours.

            Before I even finished my coffee an alarm, one of the sounds no one ever wanted to hear on a ship, blared from the speakers. I chugged the rest of the black liquid and left my mug on a counter, I’d make it up to Atra later. There was no one to pass in the halls; they’d already gone to the bridge or to the hangar to figure out what was going on. I was closer to the bridge.

            Gjallarhorn was on the list of possible reasons for the signal. Though, if it were them they would be a bit shaken from our previous battle. If it was an unknown we were probably in trouble. I prayed that the crews had made headway with Barbatos in the hours I’d been gone.

            I stopped partway outside of the bridge; even from there the tension was palpable. The grating voice of Maruba Arkay was also pumping through the doorway. Either he’d joined up with Gjallarhorn like Todo or he was with the unknown.

            I stepped into the bridge and took up position behind Orga’s right. Mika had his left. There was a new man on the screen calling himself Naze Turbine; he had long black hair flowing out from under a white fedora to match his white suit. I tuned him out and focused on the reactions of the others. Biscuit was busy looking up who the man in white was; Mika was pretty much sizing him up; and Orga, well, he was giving the man a glare that could turn hot oil to ice.

            “The Turbines are a crew under Teiwaz, they’re pretty high up on the hierarchy.” Biscuit handed Orga an E-pad and nodded at me. Any hint of worry had faded when the enemy approached.

            “What?” Orga whispered.

            Biscuit continued. “That guy, Naze, he’s sworn a blood oath to the head of the organization.”

            “So he’s one of the big shots?” Orga asked.

            “This is the worst possible scenario.”

            I looked at the man in white again. He was relaxed, confident; he’s obviously won multiple battles and thought his reputation could make us roll over. There was a woman at his side, easily one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. The woman was scantily clad with a wicked scar stretching across her right hip; judging from her height relative to the Turbine’s chair she would have towered over everyone onboard except for Akihiro, Shino, Nadi, and Orga. I caught her looking at me so I held her gaze, raised my chin defiantly and put a hand possessively on Orga’s chair. She arched an eyebrow ever so slightly and smiled.

            “If we cross Teiwaz, it’s over for us.” I couldn’t agree more with Biscuit: these people were powerful. We all waited for Orga to say anything.

            “No, this is a chance. Maruba brought us the opportunity to speak with a Teiwaz representative, we shouldn’t waste it.”

            Naze, the man in white, finally broke his silence, “Now, don’t whisper among yourselves when you’re talking to me. It’s quite rude.”

            “Sorry, please continue.”

            “Watch yourself Orga.” Biscuit whispered. It was like watching two lions circle each other before a fight any show of weakness right then would have been detrimental. Two more people stepped into the bridge as well but I didn’t turn to look at them, the woman and I were still holding each other’s gaze.

            “Well, as thanks for helping out this poor man,” Naze Turbine nodded toward Maruba, “we would take over ownership of all CGS property. Unfortunately, CGS has gone out of business. At least on paper. All of its property had been transferred to something called Tekkadan.”

            I didn’t like where this was going.

            “So what you couldn’t get from Maruba, you’re going to take from us.” Orga’s voice took on the scary quiet that meant he was really angry. I was glad to be on his good side at that moment.

            “Don’t be to uptight, I saw your battle with Gjallarhorn for myself. You all put up quite the fight for a bunch of kids,” Here we go with the darn kid thing again, “If you hand everything over, I won’t mistreat you. You can be a group under us and decent work will come your way.”

            “You won’t have to risk your lives.” My hand tightened on the chair, the skin around the lady’s eye’s tightened ever so slightly. She was picking up any information she could, I had to control my reactions.

            Fortunately, Maruba chose that moment to spout some nonsense about killing the lot of us causing the lady to pull him away from the screen with one hand, releasing me from her stare.

            Naze recovered quickly, “You’ve got a pretty big household, you can’t expect to stay together forever.”

            “Are you serious?” Orga actually seemed to be considering it. I stared at him in disbelief; Tekkadan was a family he couldn’t just let us be split up like that.

            “Why would I joke about something like that?” Naze asked.      

            “I don’t want everyone to get split up.” Thank the skies for Mika. If anyone could influence Orga, it was him.

            Biscuit looked like he was going to protest but whatever he said, Orga spoke over him, “Sorry Mr. Turbine, we can’t accept that offer.” He was typing something out onto the E-pad while Turbine spoke.

            Orga handed the pad to me and said to Turbine, “We’ve accepted a job as Tekkadan and we can’t just quit partway.” I noticed Kudelia stepping forward and chose that time to make my escape. The instructions on the E-Pad were clear: we were about to get into a fight with one of the most formidable organizations in the galaxy and Orga had a plan.

 

           


	10. A

            Orga had a plan.

            It was reckless and stupid.

            It was the best shot we had.

            It had to be.

 

            “Noah! Yamagi! Did you get the instructions I sent you?” I wasted no time getting to the hangar. By then everyone knew we were to prepare for a fight. The crews crawled over the Suits like ants, finishing last minute repairs and latching pieces back into place.

            “Yeah, we already sent the info to the bridge.” Noah grabbed my outstretched hand, pulling me to a stop on one of the railings overlooking the maintenance bays. His black hair was ruffled and, like me, he had ditched his shirt for the regulator suit.

            He, like all of the boys, wore a black suit with grey seams along the arms and chest; those ones were for people with the Whiskers implants. Mine was the regular white with grey seams reserved for anyone without the implants. Because none of us had spent much time in space we needed them to help keep temperature fluctuations and excess radiation from affecting us too much.

            “Thanks.” I said to him before turning to Nadi. He had ceased to call out orders and looked to me instead. It was quite the role reversal and the moment was not lost on me.

            “How are the Suits? Can they be used?”

            “The Graze just needs a pilot but Barbatos needs more work,” I stared at him a little longer, “We can make it work, just not at 100 percent.” He sighed.

            “Thank you.” I said both to him and Noah, who handed me one of our intercom headsets. Their weight felt all too familiar around my neck. How many more times would I wear them before this job was over and I could go back to hiding in the repair hangar?

            “ _The ship is preparing for battle. Gravity will now be deactivated._ ” Ms. Admoss’s calm voice sounded through the hangar speakers, “Prepare for 180 degree turn in two minutes”        

            “ _Akihiro and Mika are on their way._ ” Chad’s voice crackled over the comm. I gave a thumbs-up to Nadi: our pilots were coming.

            “Load the Graze up first, we’ll send Barbatos out second!” Nadi’s voice boomed through the hangar. Even though he followed my instructions I knew who was really in charge. It was comforting to know that he had my back and wouldn’t let us screw up too badly. Hopefully.

            “Yamagi, Takaki, take your teams and ready eight Mobile Workers.” They nodded at me and kicked off across the bays. Our Workers were strapped into the side of the Hangar, out of the way yet still accessible if needed. Getting them ready meant refueling, loading ammo, and of course moving them into launch position.

            Noah was part of Shino’s boarding team so he would be leaving. They were in charge of their own guns, ammo, and suits so I didn’t need to spend time on that. I watched the boy, barely younger than me by a year, swing around the door to where the boarding gear was stored. He seemed so sure of himself but I knew he was scared. Any sane person would be. Shino said that was what kept you sharp: the fear.

            “Akihiro, you’re set to launch.” Nadi called out. The broad boy was already in the normal suit and made a beeline for the graze. Those suits were the only things that would keep the pilots alive if there was a breach in the cockpit. They were pretty basic, like most of the equipment on the ship, but they had basic life support for an estimated one-hour of space-time. I prayed we would never need to figure out if that was an over or under-estimate.

            In the controlled chaos that was the hangar I almost missed Mika puling himself into the Barbatos. Nadi was with him, probably explaining what was keeping the Mech from being at 100-percent.

            I pressed the speak button on the side of the headset. “Ms. Admoss, can you send a visual of the battlefield to my E-pad? I’m sending the ID-number to you.” Instead of a verbal affirmation, a message popped up on my screen. I tapped it and multiple windows opened at once, each one was linked to a different camera.

            “Thank you.” I said quickly. The Graze was picked up by the loading crane and set into the catapult that would launch him into the battle.

            “ _Graze, Akihiro Altland, heading out._ ” Akihiro’s gravely voice was the next to come through the speakers. A cheer went up around the hangar. The Barbatos swung into position after the Graze was launched. I flicked through the windows until I found the blue-hot fire from the Akihiro’s thrusters.

            The enemy had already launched one suit and was in the process of launching a second. The models of both were too hard to make out but I could tell they weren’t Grazes: the basic balancing was too different. I hoped the lady from the

            “ _Barbatos, Mikazuki Augus, heading out._ ” A similar cheer; a second blue streak joined Akihiro. Both of our guys were on the field.

            The loading crane moved quickly, placing the Mobile workers into the catapult like bullets in a gun. The ship shuddered around us from artillery fire. I tapped the screen again and pulled up another base page, this one showed all of the mobile workers and their statuses. They were nearly all at 100 percent.

            “And here I thought you were bad with computers.” I was so focused that I didn’t notice anyone behind me. Orga reached over my shoulder and flicked back to the page with the battlefield visuals.

            “Even old dogs can learn a new trick or two.” He had totally broken my rhythm and I tried to hold on to the pieces. I could not afford to be distracted here. I turned around to look at him and put a few inches of space between us. He raised an eyebrow but I think he got the message because his commander face came back.

            He cut an impressive figure in the Normal Suit. A gun hung behind him, it would be loaded with gas canisters. The live ammunition was in a magazine attached to the outside of his suit. The goal of the mission was to make the Turbines sit up and take notice of us. Make them understand that we were more than just a bunch of kids playing at being an actual organization.

            “My guess is that negotiations totally dissolved?” I asked.

            “Not without Biscuit’s best efforts.” He pulled himself over the guardrail and kicked down to the Mobile Workers. Of course I followed, I always do.

            We stopped at one of the Workers, the E-pad said it was fully fueled and ready to go. I rapped the side of the machine with my knuckles, “You still know how to actually pilot one of these things?”

            He grinned at me, “Just because I don’t pilot doesn’t mean I can’t.” Right, part of the image he maintained. Sometimes you had to look like a person in charge in order to be one. Orga usually stayed out of the pilot seat in order to dole out orders on the battlefield. He’d given that role over to Nadi, Eugene, Biscuit, and me.

            “ _Maintenance crew: When you’re finished get out of the catapult, the airlock is about to close_!” Nadi called through the speakers. The rest of the boarding team was settling into the workers, it was time for me to leave.

            Before I could kick off, Orga grabbed my hand, “I’m com–”

            “Nope!” I cut him off, confusion spread across his face so I softened my expression and squeezed his hand, “I understand, but you know that phrase is a jynx, promise me you’ll never say it to me again?”

            He smiled, “Yeah.”

            “ _Enough flirting you two_!” Noah’s voice crackled over my headset and I glanced around to find him grinning at me from a Worker adjacent to Orga’s. I slipped my hand out of Orga’s and kicked off and out of the catapult.

“Hush you.” I’d have stuck my tongue out at Noah if there weren’t other people around.

            I looped an arm around the guardrail in time to catch Yamagi and swing him over. He had a dazed look on his face and he was holding his left hand. Panic lanced through me and thoughts of him being hurt flashed through my mind.

            “Yamagi, are you okay?”

            He looked at me as if he just realized I was there, “Oh, um, yeah.”

            He seemed embarrassed about something but I didn’t push. All that mattered to me right then was that he was okay. The airlock closed with a pneumatic hiss and we were cut off from the Mobile Workers and their pilots.

            I flipped through the visuals of the battlefield again, another enemy Suit had come into play since Mika and Akihiro launched. Yamagi and I took turns swiping back and forth to keep the battles on the screen but there was only so much the ship could capture.

            “Yamagi do you know those suits?” I asked.

            “Hyakuren, not a Gjallarhorn Suit.” Yamagi muttered, quickly identifying the enemy. If they weren’t from Gjallarhorn then that meant Teiwaz had their own supplier. A good one.

            Another shudder rippled through the Isaribi. The third suit had closed and was peppering the ship with bullets. This one had a large propulsion pack that increased both speed and agility, making it a target our anti-craft guns couldn’t dream of hitting.

            Mika forced her to change course with a few shots from the Barbatos’s shoulder cannon. The enemy’s propulsion made them too agile for any of the shots to land but their focus had been shifted. Mika and the enemy flew in tight formation around each other, eventually moving out of range of the cameras.

            The Isaribi had a few tricks of its own, including a plentiful stash of smokescreen missiles. The bridge fired a volley of these in the direction of the Turbine’s ship, the E-pad identified it as the Hammerhead. They wasted no time in intercepting the missiles causing a smokescreen to envelope their field of vision, and ours.

            I hoped Eugene was a good enough pilot not to flatten us against the battering ram that gave the Hammerhead its distinctive shape. The cameras on the bow showed a shadow, then the full ship can into view. The Turbines hadn’t even stowed their bridge they were so assured of a win, I felt my eye twitch in annoyance.

            “Mobile Workers launching!” It was Takaki’s voice that called out this time. Yamagi and I practically glued our eyes to the screen, to the ever-growing ship. Eugene turned us at the last second so that we barely missed the Hammerhead. If the Workers moved into the wrong position, they would be flattened. But we wouldn’t know their until the battle stopped.

            Yamagi switched to Akihiro’s side of the battle and I prayed that the Graze was holding up. He had kept the Hyakuren away from the Hammerhead for our game of spaceship chicken. Apparently they had caught on to what Akihiro had done and tried to leave the battlefield to protect their ship. He would have none of that.

            The Graze rushed the closest suit, causing it to turn about and parry with what looked to be a giant combat blade. The Graze couldn’t match the Hyakuren’s output and its axe was tossed aside. The enemy suit slashed down on the Graze’s torso, knocking it away.

            It seemed as if Akihiro was stunned for a moment before the back thrusters fired off and recklessly shot him toward the enemy. Without the axe Akihiro pummeled the enemy with his fists. It reminded me of a brawl, definitely not something you should do with a Mobile Suit. Where Akihiro’s moves resembled those of a street fighter, the enemy’s were those of a trained martial artist.

            The Hyakuren locked the Graze in its grasp and brought a knee up to smash the head sensor, effectively blinding Akihiro. He was knocked back again but didn’t give up: the shoulder canon shuttered into place but the Hyakuren easily dodged the shot. That gun was for ranged attacks, not close combat.

            The enemy ripped the gun off of the Graze, causing the barrel to explode, knocking Akihiro into the other enemy Hyakuren which, until that point, had remained on the sidelines. He wrapped the Graze’s arms around the leg of the enemy Mech and punched it ineffectually, again something that would work in a human fight but not in a mech battle.

            The first Hyakuren returned to assist its comrade. It grabbed the ruined Graze and whipped it around like a rag doll. The second Kyakuren wrapped around the back while the first poised its combat knife to shear off the rest of the Graze’s head. My breath caught in my throat. Yamagi’s hand grabbed for my own and squeezed. I squeezed back, eyes glued to the screen.

            “ _They’ve agreed to hear us out._ ” Biscuit said over the ship’s speakers, “ _It’s over._ ”


	11. Bang

When you’re a mechanic you tend to pick up a few things. Usually those things are related to rewiring, shaping metal, or knowing where a certain machine type will stick no matter how many times you grease it. When you’re a mechanic for a paramilitary group that seems to get into more fights than an angry drunk you learn to accept that the machine you poured time and effort into fixing will just end up being smashed to bits.  
I sat on the railing that ran around the hangar Nadi stood on my left. Together we looked over the beaten Mobile Suits, cataloging superficial and internal damage into the E-pad’s database. It occurred to me that we even wore the same expression and I snickered.  
“What’s funny?” He asked without diverting his gaze from the Barbatos. That was Nadi: always focused on getting the job done.  
“Don’t worry about it.” I replied. My face settled back into a grimace.  
The Graze had taken a major beating. The sensor covering was crushed but salvageable, some of the joints needed to be repaired, the cannon was totaled, geez the list just went on. Barbatos was in better shape, but only just. At least with the Graze we could scavenge parts. That was one of the major benefits of Gjallarhorn’s standard model: nearly any armor they made could be modified to fit it.  
Barbatos was a different story. No matter how good Nadi was he couldn’t dream of being on par with a Gundam engineer, and we didn’t exactly have any hiding in the crew. Most people who knew how to service a Gundam well had died out three hundred years ago. The machine itself might be darn powerful but that meant nothing if we couldn’t fix it when it broke.  
I glanced down at the spreadsheet on the E-pad. Dante had somehow made a program that recognized the parts I typed in and checked what we had in storage on the ship. Parts we had would turn green and parts we didn’t have would turn red. There was a lot of red on Nadi’s list.  
I swung my legs over the railing. The slightly magnetized boots kept me from bouncing off of the observation walkway. Walking around had felt weird for a while, the boots were just strong enough that something felt off when I moved, but I got used to it. That’s what I always did: adapt to the environment I was thrown into.  
I guess that’s what all of the kids did. But did it always have to be that way? Couldn’t we shape our own environment?  
Was that what we did when we took over CGS? Maybe. But it didn’t feel any different.  
Sure, there was no longer a First Army to antagonize us but we would never be anything other than the Third Army.  
“Where’re you going?” Nadi grumbled. He flicked through more diagrams of output systems from the Barbatos and scowled at the E-pad.  
“Going to get coffee so you don’t eat me.” I called back.  
“Wait up! I’ll come with.” Noah called out. He had changed out of the normal suit back into his regular clothes. He’d reported back to the bay as soon as the transport shuttle brought the rest of our infiltration crew back to the Isaribi.  
“Sure.” I didn’t stop to let him catch up but his legs were longer than mine. We were in step before long. Walking around on the ship was a strange combination of walking and floating. I still preferred walking, I don’t know if it was the lack of control that came with floating or what but I didn’t like it so much.  
Noah was trying to be my friend, I was fully aware of that. Even though the boy had moved closer to my core circle of friends he had yet to make it into the circle of people around whom my image changed. I had to maintain a tough exterior around most of the boys otherwise they wouldn’t listen to orders. When I was younger, before Orga and Mika joined CGS, I was pretty much ignored if Nadi wasn’t around.  
Street kids understand hierarchies and dominance. The best way to move up in a hierarchy is by establishing dominance. Dominance usually came to those who could beat up or outsmart the others; sometimes you could get it laterally by being friends with someone who was dominant. I got my spot in the hierarchy by picking a fight with Eugene. I didn’t win but I did earn his respect and we became friends; thus the lateral dominance effect.  
To keep your spot in the hierarchy you had to project confidence and a don’t-mess-with-me attitude. Keeping the image up: I was good at that, almost too good. Dealing with Noah was helping me with that. Or I was just making more friends. Either way it was a good thing.  
“Aurora, did you hear me?” Noah waved his hand in front of my face. I guess I’d zoned out for a while. We’d made it to the kitchen and he’d started mixing mugs of instant coffee. I blinked and looked at him questioningly.  
He gestured at the mugs, “How do you and Nadi take your coffee?”  
“Black, both of them.” I replied.  
He made a face, “ugh, it’s like tar without anything in it.”  
“Puts hair on your chest.” I grinned at him, he dumped sweetener and powdered cream into his own mug.  
“Don’t listen to anything she says about putting hair on your chest.” Shino shouted as he thudded into the mess hall. He pushed past us to grab his own mug of instant. He’d taken the time to change into normal work clothes too.  
“That was one time!” I smiled. Noah handed me the mug lids and I snapped them onto the steaming cups.  
“What happened?”  
“She told Eugene and me that if we ate dirt we’d get hair on our chests.” This had happened before they hit their growth spurts and started to put muscle on. Both of them had been scrawny little things, even though I really wasn’t one to talk.  
“You were the ones who listened to a girl’s advice about growing chest hair. I think the consequences were your own faults.”  
“You actually listened to her?”  
“We chased her around the base until Haeda yelled at us for causing trouble. Then we were all running from him!” Shino gulped down his coffee and then smiled at the memory. I grinned at him.  
“Have you heard anything about what’s going on with the Turbines?” I asked.  
“Hmm? Oh yeah, Orga and Biscuit told us that the boss guy with the funny hat said that he’d introduce us to his boss.” Shino explained  
“What?” I grabbed two of the coffees and Noah grabbed his. Shino followed us to the maintenance bay.  
“Yeah! Now we’re going to the Teiwaz headquarters to work out a deal with the big boss!” He said excitedly  
“Wait, we’re joining a space mafia?” Right, Noah wasn’t there when the rest of the guys had talked it over.  
“That’s the plan apparently.” I called back. It wasn’t great but we had no other options. I listened absentmindedly while Shino filled him in.  
Teiwaz was a name nearly everyone had heard about. They had earned dominance by being the toughest in the outer orbits. They are the organization even Gjallarhorn would hesitate to directly cross with, at least in the vicinity of Mars and Jupiter. 

The atmosphere in the bay was different when we returned. Where there had been gloom and weariness there was an tangible spark running through the crews.  
Enough of the younger group was clustered around the Gundam that I could guess what, or who, had caused the shift. Mikazuki was there working on the Barbatos. Shino and Noah left to join him. I jumped over to Nadi, who was in the exact same spot I’d left him in.  
“Thank you.” He accepted his mug and nearly finished it in one gulp.  
“Mika came too, huh?”  
“Yeah, he’s a real help with that thing,” He gestured to the white Suit, “Him being connected to it is the best way to figure out what’s going wrong.”  
I nodded and sipped my own coffee. We stood there for a while, occasionally calling out orders to the crews working on the two Suits or tapping notes into the E-pads.  
“What do you think of the Teiwaz decision?” I finally asked.  
“So that’s what’s been eating at you.” Of course Nadi picked up on it. I never could hide anything from him, even when I tried.  
He sighed, “You know Orga as well as anyone. Do you think he’d throw all of these kids into something dangerous if he thought there was a better choice?”  
“Is there a better choice? Why do we have to be a part of a gang?”  
“Would Gjallarhorn be a better option?”  
“No. But–”  
“Ari, you know the world isn’t black and white. Gjallarhorn isn’t the noble organization it claims to be, maybe Teiwaz isn’t awful like gangs are supposed to be.”  
“I hope not. I told Orga I’d follow the direction he points Tekkadan in.” I just hoped it was the right one. 

 

For three days our mechanic crews pulled ten-hour work shifts, or at least everyone else did. Nadi and I stayed on for fourteen-hour shifts as the overseers. Okay officially we had fourteen-hour shifts; unofficially we lived in that maintenance hangar for the full three days. I wasn’t the only one who had a bad habit of working longer than I should; that habit certainly did not come from working with my dad when I was little.  
Those 72 hours weren’t pretty, I’m pretty sure I snapped at Shino or Noah once or twice, but we got those Mobile Suits back into decent shape. Okay, maybe the Barbatos wasn’t in decent shape but at least the Graze worked. We didn’t have the resources to make the Mech look like it was at 100 percent but I thought the dings, scrapes, and patchy paint job gave it some character.  
There was only so much we could do with the Barbatos without its plans or an engineer who knew how to repair the darn thing. Nadi and I tried our best but there’s only so much you can do with wires and wrenches. One of the ladies from the Turbines crew, Eco her name was, came to help us out. After the mad rush we’d been through up until then any assistance was fine, even if it was from the crew that’d banged the Mechs up in the first place.  
It had been such a long time since we’d had to pull shifts like that, I don’t think any of us remembered just how bad maintenance could be. Banged fingers, cuts, bruises, all of that on top of frayed tempers made for a bad situation. When Nadi announced that there wasn’t anymore we could do, well, I swear you could feel the atmosphere lighten. 

Even the lukewarm water of the shower felt so good I nearly cried. We couldn’t spare much energy to heat the water any higher but every degree above freezing counted.  
After the last bubble raft of soap slipped down the drain to the water recycler I started to doze. The air was slightly steamy and warm but the cold ceramic of the stall shocked me awake again. Reluctantly I ended the shower and wound my thin towel around my chest. My grimy clothes were in a ball in the corner of the stall so that I wouldn’t have to touch them too much to bring them to my room.  
There was no one else in the bathroom but I hurried back anyway. I didn’t worry about anyone seeing me in a towel; most of the guys on board were pretty young or had grown up with me anyways. Back at CGS it’d been the First Army guys who gave me any trouble. Instead I hurried because the metal panels that made up the floors of the hallway were sucking the warmth out of my bare feet.  
I quickly tapped the “open” code into the panel that was embedded into the wall beside my door. It opened with a hiss and I quickly dove inside. The floors weren’t any warmer but I did have nightclothes: an old shirt and a pair of shorts. Much better than a thin towel for keeping warm.  
Even better for keeping warm was the blanket that covered my cot. I tossed the ball of clothes haphazardly into a hamper bound for the laundry and stumbled into the blue material. I don’t remember anything after that.

My hair was still wet when I woke up. Well, when I was woken up by someone knocking on the door. I sighed and hoped they would leave but of course they knocked again. Someone must have ratted me out.  
I hurriedly ran my fingers through my hair to get some of the knots out and shuffled to the door. I tripped over a pair of boots that I’d left in front of the door and nearly smacked my head into a wall.  
“You okay?” The person on the other side of the door asked. Their voice was muffled but I could tell who it was in an instant, though it only improved my mood a little.  
The lights of the hallway blinded me for a moment or two before my eyes adjusted. Orga stood just outside the door; when he saw me squint he laughed before moving to block out some of the light.  
“Atra said you didn’t get dinner with everyone else, I figured I’d make sure you were alive.”  
“Am I?”  
He raised an eyebrow, “Are you?”  
I thought for a moment before asking, “What time is it?”  
He glanced at the panel on the door, “half past twenty hundred.”  
“Too early.” Could I only use simple sentences when I was tired or did he just make me too nervous? Not important.  
What was important was that I still had ten hours before I needed to think about doing anything.  
He gave me a confused look. Oh right, 20:00 hours wouldn’t be early for someone who actually kept regular hours. Oh well.  
“You can come in or you can stay out there,” I stifled a yawn, “Either way I’m gonna go back to bed.” I turned around, ambled back to my little bed and threw myself down. I was still so tired that I didn’t even care about wrapping the blanket up around me.  
Behind me I heard door hiss shut. For a moment I thought he’d left until I heard the click of boots on metal. There was a pause and then the quieter padding of feet crept closer. The noise stopped and then something warm and soft covered me. I cracked an eye open and saw Orga’s hand pulling my forgotten blanket farther over me. My hand flashed out and grabbed his wrist. He jumped a bit but to be fair, even I was startled at the quick reaction.  
“Stay.” I mumbled.  
He huffed like he was annoyed but I knew better. If it were left to him he’d probably end up in the chair even if he would rather have been with me on the slightly more comfortable cot.  
I tugged gently on his wrist to get him to move faster.  
One of the best things about getting Orga alone was that he stopped trying to put up the cool front and he became the awkward guy I knew he was. Seeing him be a little unsure of himself reminded me that he was still human.  
“Now what will the crew think?” He sighed. Even half awake I could hear his smile.  
“Don’ care, and you’re already here.” I tugged again. And for the first time I really didn’t care. There was no embarrassment, no thoughts about focusing on work. Just this. Just now. And I really wanted someone to be next to me.  
The bed jostled and dipped a bit under his weight until he found a comfortable position. The bed was a bit short for him so his legs stretched all the way to the opposite corner. The arm I’d captured remained where it was, draped over my waist and wedged under my left arm. The last thing I remember before I surrendered to sleep was feeling safe tucked up against him.


	12. But

Mornings on the ship had settled into a routine. The crew would slowly wake up and stumble into the mess hall for coffee and breakfast, Eugene and Shino would tease me about Orga once or twice before moving on to some other topic, and then everyone would depart to their assignments.   
Adults would think that a crew of kids would slack off and play games all day instead of working. Kids like us didn’t know how to stop working, it was all that stood between the streets and us; between living and dying. There was even a comfort to knowing that there was a purpose for you and a whole team of people working with you. When we worked we weren’t alone.   
I walked the halls alone. I had left Orga at the bridge and Noah was down in the mechanic bay with Shino and Eugene. They’d taken to using the bay as their default hang out.   
It was the time of the day between meals, when the boys would be off and away. The Mess was quiet and empty but for Atra cheerfully slicing and peeling some vegetable for her next creation.   
About that time I would walk into the Mess and we would have coffee together and talk about the day or sit in silence; her with her chopping, me with some data pad in front of me. The day before it had been a spreadsheet of all of the scavenged parts that were to go to market, today my task list was wondrously empty.   
“Hey Atra.” I called. She would either be behind the counter or at the tables, setting up or wiping down. But today she neither chopped nor wiped, instead she sat at one of the long tables accompanied by a figure I had only seen on the monitor of the bridge. The dark woman who had stood behind the captain of the Turbines sipped coffee in the middle of our Mess Hall, chatting with our cook.   
“Oh Aurora!” Atra nearly popped up from her seat. Her pink sweater hung to mid-thigh, nearly covering her gray shorts. The largeness of it contrasted with her petite form, giving the illusion that she was smaller than she was.  
Though she looked young I knew her to be about fifteen; her diminutive size was a sign that she was like us. A sign that she had at one point been cast away by society and left to fend for herself as a child. The light behind her eyes showed she hadn’t been beaten by her childhood.  
“Ms. Amida was looking for you! I told her you would usually stop by around this time.” Atra babbled.   
The dark woman, Amida, didn’t rise from her seat and instead inspected me from over her shoulder. “Please do join us.” She drawled in a voice that was thick like the syrup we were occasionally given as holiday treats.   
I froze for the slightest of moments and I knew the woman saw. Mentally I kicked myself for the lapse. Physically I moved silently between tables to where they sat.   
I took the seat that put my back to the windows that lined the Mess and my face to the door. Odd that she had allowed me to take a position of surveillance. Was she showing that she was confident in her position, or maybe she was signaling trust by exposing her back?   
“Amida was it?” I asked in my best neutral tone. I didn’t know if Atra could pick up on my caution but she chattered about pouring me my own coffee and quickly busied herself with that.  
The woman smiled and I was struck with the depth behind her eyes. They seemed fit for a person with more years than she could have reasonably laid ownership to. “Yes, Amida Arca. But you can just call me Amida, okay?”   
Was smiling her default expression? Atra rejoined us and I thanked her for the coffee before she retreated behind the counter once more. The steady sound of chopping filled the silence.   
I cupped the hot mug in my hands and rested both elbows on the table, “What brings you to our ship?”  
I tried to keep my tone light but my wariness still stood out. Seven days had passed since our crews had been at each other’s throats. Though I had heard updates on our relationship with Teiwaz and the Turbines from Orga every night, I still harbored some distrust.   
“I came to see the heart of this thing you call Tekkadan.” She said with a slight smile. Maybe the smile was to show she meant no harm.   
“The heart?” What the heck did she mean by that?   
The corners of her mouth pulled into the slightest smile and she leaned forward over her mug of coffee.   
“Maybe I should explain a little better. I mean the thing that keeps the group moving. The heart.” She placed her hand over her chest and looked at me expectantly.  
“Why do you want to know about Biscuit?” If I had to pick anyone for the “heart” she was talking about, it would’ve been him. He was always there, planning, looking out for us. Orga led us, that was for sure, but Biscuit drew the map and kept us on course.   
She threw her head back and laughed. I jumped a bit at the sudden loudness and the rhythmic chopping stuttered in the background. After a second she put her hand on my shoulder, “no, I mean you: the woman behind the commander.”   
I tensed at the sudden show of closeness. She recognized it and pulled back, leaving the space between us like a barrier.   
“How does that make me the heart of Tekkadan?” I sipped my own coffee.   
“What represents a company more than the man who leads it?”  
“Orga isn’t Tekkadan, he’s a person.”   
“But isn’t Orga in charge? Doesn’t that make him the embodiment of what it means to be a part of Tekkadan?” She raised an eyebrow at me before taking a sip of her coffee.   
“No. Tekkadan isn’t just a single person, it’s all of us.” I stopped for a moment to sip at the coffee and to find the right words. Amida politely waited for me to continue, “Orga might have kicked the gears into motion, but it takes all of us to keep Tekkadan running.”  
“So to you, the heart of Tekkadan lies with the person who keeps the group moving. This Biscuit-boy?”  
“Yes and no.”   
“How can he be both the heart and not-the-heart?” Leaned forward and cradled her chin on her palms. Not an aggressive posture, meant to lower my defenses.   
I thought for a moment before continuing, “He and Orga are like a team: Orga pushes forward and Biscuit corrects the path. They’ve always been like that.”  
Amida nodded, listening intently.  
“Biscuit makes sure that Orga’s plans will be okay for everyone. He’s always considering how things affect the group and looks out for the rest of us. That’s what makes him the heart.”  
“So then what makes him not the heart?”  
“All of us– all of Tekkadan– is held together by really strong bonds. We’ve been through so much pain and the hardships have made the bonds we share come together like chains. I think those chains keep us connected and drive us forward,” I broke off for a moment to finish my mug of coffee, “we all do our best so that our friends stay safe and protected. That idea is what I think the heart is.”  
“I see.” Was all she said. I felt a little deflated at the short reaction. Was I actually trying to win her approval? Was that why I felt disappointed?   
“I like that idea.” Atra had spoken so quietly that, for a brief moment, I thought I’d imagined the words. Her voice was stronger when she continued: “That idea of us protecting each other and looking out for everyone. It’s like a family.”  
We sat in silence for a moment before the clank of boots stirred us. The first wave of boys was coming in for their lunch break.  
Amida rose and brought her mug to the counter for cleaning. She thanked Atra for a wonderful cup of coffee and turned her forest green eyes, a shade similar to my own, to rest on me. This time there was no challenge in the connection and I knew I had passed some sort of test.   
At the entryway to the Mess boys paused to peer in at the three women having coffee; two familiar, and thus uninteresting, and one dark and new.   
She grinned at me once more, “I found our chat to be, enlightening.”   
The atmosphere lightened considerably when she sauntered out of the Mess Hall. The crowd parted like water to allow her through. Some of the older boys even turned to watch her depart, the rest of them turned to me with questioning looks that I waved away.


	13. With

Tension is the stored energy, the potential for what can be done. Hook the spring to keep the energy stored.   
Press the latch to release the spring. Released too fast; too much energy at once. Need a control so that the energy is released at a constant amount to prevent the system from being overwhelmed. Easy enough.  
Add wheels and axels for the energy to be spent in moving the body. Would they need to move? Probably not.   
The movement would flip the car and wind up useless. Fixed axels it would be. Now what was next? Friction. Need to reduce friction. The ball bearings could be greased just a bit to make them glide more easily. There, perfect.   
I pulled the toy car back along the table until I heard a click. It was a small replica of an old war cruiser Ride had found online. The he boy had been so excited about it that I’d even made a small gun that fired tiny pellets when a button was pressed. Innocently, I clicked the red button that loaded the pellets into the gun and released the toy. It whirred along the table, firing tiny beads at Eugene.   
“Hey!” He shouted and tried to ward off the barrage with his empty plate. Shino laughed at him from across the table. Cups and plates rattled in the shuffle, drawing the attention of the others in the Mess Hall. Most turned away after a second and returned to conversations more interesting than our usual antics.   
“Why am I always the one getting hit with things?” Eugene moaned pitifully. He picked bits of metal out of his blonde hair and dropped them in a pile on his discarded plate.   
“Because you’re the one who put soy sauce in my coffee.” I shot back.   
“I told you not to do it.” Shino tried to hide his smile but failed.  
“Liar! You’re the one who thought of it in the first place!” Eugene gave me his best imitation of what a kicked puppy would look like, “And I’m the one who gets in trouble.”  
“Don’t worry, Shino’s day will come.” I said in a monotone.   
Eugene grinned and picked up the now motionless toy and turned it over in his hands. The guts of the toy were visible from the bottom and he and Shino both whistled at the number of tiny gears and pins that made the machine work.   
“How do you know how to make these things?” Shino asked before handing the toy to me.  
“I think my dad made stuff like this in his spare time.” I brushed unused scrap metal and pins into a pile, they could probably be used for other projects. I didn’t like to toss out potentially useful bits. Heck, the toy cars were all made out of old metal from accumulated odds and ends that I’d had to twist and bend into shape.   
“Whenever I wanted to help him he would have me make little things like this until I could start helping out in the garage.” I set the toy on the table.   
Across the Mess Hall there was a small group of younger boys that had been watching me work. One of them darted over to the table as soon as I put the finished toy down.   
He asked if he could have it. I said he could, but only if he shared it with everyone else. He agreed with a smile and he rushed back to the crowded table with his prize. That made the seventh toy in three days.  
“You’re going to spoil them if you keep this up.” Orga’s deep voice made my heart stop for the slightest of moments. Eugene and Shino snickered some shared joke, probably at my expense. I tried to ignore them.  
“A few toys never hurt anything. They deserve it after the weeks they’ve had.” I replied while arranging the small set of tools I used for the cars into a pouch. They weren’t the ones from my father’s shop but they got the job done. I shoved the set into one of the many pockets in my work pants and looked up at him.   
In one hand he held an E-pad, no doubt it held some spreadsheet for expenses, the other hand was shoved in a pocket. He seemed more at ease than he had been in a while; leadership suited him. Maybe I was just a little biased.   
The group of younger boys watched Orga with wide eyes. They always watched him with those eyes; analyzing and imitating, nothing he did went unseen. I knew the pressure it placed on him. He covered the cracks well. So well that I think even he forgot they were there.   
“What’cha here for?” Shino asked as Orga slipped into the empty seat beside me. The metal table rattled slightly when he sank onto the seat connected to it. I brushed the scrap pile away so he could set the E-pad down. Eugene got up, murmuring something about getting more coffee, and darted over to the kitchen where Atra was usually stationed. It was odd to be there without the sound of her cooking or washing something.  
He returned with a large pot of hot water and the instant coffee powder in hand. I dumped heaping spoon-fulls into my mug and turned the water to the color of mud. Shino shuddered in displeasure at the sight. He and Eugene made much weaker brews than I could stomach. Orga opted for plain old hot water, as usual.   
“Biscuit and I just met with Naze Turbine.” Orga flipped through the spreadsheets as he explained. I hadn’t seen the captain of the Turbines apart from the time on the bridge when our group had been at each other’s throats. His white fedora and suit combination was hard to forget.   
“Oh? What about?” Eugene asked. As the substitute ship captain, he had been part of the small group to meet with the Turbines after the ceasefire. While he was busy with tea and cookies we had been busy with repairs on the mechs and the ship.   
“He’s willing to act as a go-between for merchants so we can get rid of our loot from those run-ins with Gjallarhorn.” The looted scrap we’d collected was a bit difficult to get rid of. There were a lot of traders we’d worked with back in the CGS days but we needed specialized merchants for some of the parts in our inventory. Namely the Ahab reactor from the Graze we’d cannibalized for parts when the Barbatos and Akihiro’s Graze had been under repair.   
“That’s great!” Shino exclaimed in his usual manner. I swear the guy needed a volume dial. No concept of “inside voice” at all.   
“Does this mean we’ll have enough money for the guys back on Mars?” Eugene asked.  
“Not sure,” Orga turned the E-pad across the table, “This is the estimated value Ari put together. Naze thought it was an acceptable amount given the source and conditions.”   
There was something in his eye when he looked at me. I arched an eyebrow at him questioningly but he turned back to the E-pad. “Biscuit’s recording a message to the base on Mars right now but it’ll probably be a few days before we hear anything on the price we get.”  
The conversation quickly turned into a discussion of business and operating costs.

When work topics had run dry the boys turned to more embarrassing things. I had been able to make my escape at that point by saying I needed to ask Naze about something. Orga got away minute or two later, he’d probably made up an excuse about meeting Biscuit.  
“Naze asked about you.”   
“Oh? What about?” I asked  
We both leaned against railing in front of one of the large screens that lined the outer walls of the ship. His right arm brushed against my left gently enough that it wasn’t obvious. Being on a ship full of guys you’d grown up with opened you right up to teasing; overt displays of affection were open invitations.   
I absentmindedly flicked between camera views of the space-scapes around the ship before settling on one from a camera on the nose of the ship.   
“Nothing big, just about what you thought of Tekkadan being a subsidiary of Teiwaz. I said he should ask you if he wanted to know.”   
I leaned against him a bit when he said that. I liked that he didn’t try to presume to know how I felt about the company’s next move. Of course, he knew I supported him and would tell him if I didn’t approve of a decision. But he let me have my own voice and didn’t try to speak for me. As a girl, growing up where I did, that meant a lot.   
“Asked about your last name too.” Now that was strange. I glanced up at Orga to look for any clues but his face was calm. I turned back to watching distant stars drift slowly across the screen.   
“Huh, Why’d he want to know something like that?”   
“No clue. But a while after I told him and Amida, she got up and left.”   
“From my name or are you thinking it’s something else?”   
“She didn’t drop any tells when she left, but given how close her departure was to learning your name I’m thinking it played a part.”  
We were silent for a while.  
I didn’t think there was anything special about the name Tantas. Sure it sounded strange compared to Augus, Itsuka, or Griffon, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing in the solar system. Heck, some of the Gjallarhorn families had funnier names than I did.   
“You’re worried?” He asked. I could feel his eyes on me. Normally I didn’t mind, in fact I loved when he looked at me. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up.   
“No, just curious.”   
“Liar.”   
“What?!” I jumped up and put my hands on my hips.   
He laughed and poked my forehead with one finger, “You always get a crease right there when you’re worried about something.”   
I snatched his finger and tried to maintain an outraged look, “Do not!”  
“Wanna bet?” He grinned, “What do I get if I’m right?”  
“Not taking any bets from you, Itsuka.” I’d learned my lesson in that particular area years ago. Exactly what we’d disagreed on was a mystery but the punishment for losing had been gross. Imagine what a fourteen-year old boy could make up and you’re on the right track.   
“You’re no fun, Tantas.” He lightly tugged me back by the hand that I’d trapped. With a slight grin I let myself be pulled closer. For the moment we were alone and I was safe under his arm. More at ease than either of us could remember being.   
“Maybe I’m secretly related to some old Gjalarhorn family. You’d better watcj yourself.” I teased and poked him in the ribs. He snickered and moved away from the offending finger. Eventually I relented and reached out for his other hand; he willingly gave it up.  
We were really flirting with danger there; if one of the guys saw us the teasing may never have stopped. Of course only I really cared about that, they would never dare tease Orga to the extent they teased me. I was lower in the social hierarchy, a bigger target.  
But I could deal with it. There were always ways to get even.  
“Whatever it ends up being, we’ll get through it. All of us, all of Tekkadan.” He said in that sure way of his. I believed him.


End file.
